


Where Wilder Hearts Roam

by eveninglottie



Series: Wilder Hearts and Weary Hands [1]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: (eventually) - Freeform, (mostly), Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, BAMF Bilbo Baggins, Belligerent Sexual Tension, F/M, Female Bilbo Baggins, Female Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield, Loose Interpretation of Canon, Rule 63, Slow Burn, just a lot of angst in this one guys be prepared
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2018-12-26 03:47:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 40
Words: 225,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12050649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eveninglottie/pseuds/eveninglottie
Summary: Of all the names Bella Baggins ever held over the course of her long life, of those given to her by the various noble peoples of Middle-earth, or the ones she herself took up for one reason or another, most being altogether too bold for any self-respecting hobbit to claim, her first and favorite was Bright Eyes.





	1. The Girl with the Gold in Her Mouth

**Author's Note:**

> **Before you read** , I'd like to put a little disclaimer at the top of this fic: _this will not be a faithful retelling_. I will be changing a lot of details, some small, some large, to better allow me to tell the story I want to tell. It will be OC heavy, character-driven, and at times, entirely canon-divergent. I know that this can bother some people, so I am warning you ahead of time that if you don't like any of these things in the fics you read, you might not like this fic  <3
> 
> Tumblr: **[eveninglottie](https://eveninglottie.tumblr.com/)** || [Youtube Playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-)|| [Spotify Playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/eveninglottie/playlist/6PjKwzZOzRYxkOjOjPCh9X?si=g3UbR_UASKyZvtrfeYE7dw)
> 
> I've been lucky enough to be gifted a few amazing pieces of art for this fic, so if you are interested, please go and check out [my tag on my tumblr](https://eveninglottie.tumblr.com/tagged/bella-art). It's all amazing and the artists deserve so, so much love <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["No More Losing The War" by Half Moon Run](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gUih3HeM8w&index=1&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-)

Of all the names Bella Baggins ever held over the course of her long life, of those given to her by the various noble peoples of Middle-earth, or the ones she herself took up for one reason or another, most being altogether too bold for any self-respecting hobbit to claim, her first and favorite was Bright Eyes.

No one understood this name, of course, as her eyes were a dark soil-brown, closer to the ebonwood trees growing at the edge of Buckland than the gnarled oak and pine of Hobbiton. Her eyes were dark like kettles and beetle wings. But the moment Belladonna Baggins, née Took, locked warm brown eyes, closer to honey than teak, with her daughter’s near-black, she grinned the happy, tired grin of a new mother, and whispered, “It’s about time, Bright Eyes.” 

“ _Took_ eyes,” she told her confused, yet affectionate, husband later, cradling little Bella with her soft golden brown curls and flushed pink face. “My father has eyes dark as coal, and just as quick to burn. These are eyes which belong to mischief, and the sun’s shadow—who, of course you know, dear Bungo, is ever watchful over the little fairies which roam the hills looking for trouble. She’ll be a wild one, this one will.”

Her husband, the most respectable Bungo Baggins, merely smiled and nodded, well used to Belladonna’s fanciful ways and tendency to spin tall tales out of twine. He was tired, his daughter was lovely and gurgling like a soft spring brook, his wife was beaming and bouncing with delight. He was, though he would never be so bold as to say it out loud, quite the happiest hobbit who had ever lived. 

As Bella grew older and more hobbits questioned Belladonna about the nickname, the rest of the Shire not so accustomed to Tookish oddity that they didn’t find the whole thing rather strange, she explained to anyone who would listen that it wasn’t because little Bella twinkled with life, though she did, nor because her smile lit up the Shire as she ran screaming through the grass and wildflowers, though it did that as well. It was not even for the starlight which caught now and again in the young hobbit’s eyes when her father tipped her chin up to the night sky, naming the constellations and whispering lovely, mad tales into her wide open ears, or the sunlight which followed after her with a greedy longing as she dug into the soil of her mother’s garden like an adventurer searching for lost treasure.

No, Gandalf—wizard, traveler, and old, old friend to Gerontius Took and his most remarkable daughter—learned one day while sitting with Belladonna and watching the little hobbit roll down the hill under which Bag End sat only to charge up, breathless and shrieking with laughter, to repeat the whole endeavor again, and again. Belladonna called her daughter Bright Eyes because they reminded her of the hearth fire and the torchlight, the darkness burning away in the face of a brilliance so soft it warmed the heart to look upon it. “Bright like embers,” she whispered to him with an indulgent smile, as little Bella grew dizzy from her tumbling and hopped onto his lap, begging for another story of heroes and kings and faraway lands of magic and mystery, “one errant bit of wind and she’ll catch fire. She’s got the eyes of the sun, this one, and the sun’s blessing she’ll have.”

It was a queer thing to say about a child of the Shire, as most hobbits believed little in the grander mysteries of the world beyond the interference of smaller spirits of flower and stick, of the tiny guardians which sometimes watched over the gentler animals of the gardens of gentler folk. Gandalf had spent much time with these people, and he’d never seen any trace of the reverence of Men, Dwarves, or Elves in them. It was part of their charm, and while they worshipped the land in their own way, tending carefully to their gardens and fields, and guiding the little animals and trees at their borders, they belonged to none of the Valar. They belonged only to themselves, and Gandalf loved them for it.

Why Belladonna Baggins suddenly took it into her head to talk of sun blessings and fire burning in her daughter’s heart, he knew not. But she had always had a far-reaching mind, and so he smiled and nodded, and went back to spinning stories of dark deeds and lady knights, thinking privately to himself that if any hobbit might gain the attention of the Valar, it might be this one. 

The Shire was too small and too simple for her little Bright Eyes, Belladonna confided to Gandalf one day some years later, when her daughter was well into childhood and every bit as stubborn and willful as she herself had been at that age. Bella wandered too far and too wide. She scared the other children with her fanciful stories of dragons and black fire, collecting them like lightning bugs in jars around her heart. For though the most remarkable daughter of Old Took never lost her love of wild places and adventure, she worried. While her husband, seeing again the fire he loved in his wife reborn in his daughter, never counted it strange that his darling, lovely Bella liked climbing trees to talk with the birds and threw stones at any stray dogs who might come for her prized chickens, Belladonna knew what it was to harbor a wild heart in the Shire. 

She’d been lucky, abundantly, wonderfully lucky, to have found her dear Bungo, even after all her years of wandering, farther afield than she would ever admit even to him. But not many hobbits found that fire and will something to cherish. Sprinkled into the otherwise calm temperament of a proper lady of the Shire, perhaps it might win some cheeky remarks and fond thoughts of excitement in a peaceful, quiet marriage. But little Bella was more than most could handle, and she lived in a place where peace and quiet were more important than adventure. 

Belladonna loved her daughter more than she loved anything else in the whole world, except, perhaps, her husband, and would never think to tame her warrior’s heart, but she did worry. For even the fiercest flame could be doused by the disapproval of others, and loneliness was the heaviest burden of all. She might have taught her that, in time, if her sweet, adoring Bungo had not left her too soon, and her own wild heart had broken beyond repair of even her daughter’s sad, bright eyes.

Belladonna Baggins, née Took, did not last the year after her husband died, and followed him to whatever distant land hobbits went to when they passed through the veil of life as soon as she could. At the young age of thirty-four, when she should have been courting, sprouting wings to roost in a nest of her own, Bella had buried her parents in little graves behind her hill, and stared down the rest of her lonely life with dry, aching eyes.

Five times did Gandalf meet little Bella Baggins before the quick death of her father and slower, more painful wasting away of her mother. Five times did Gandalf see that fire grow and blossom, a vibrant, thorny weed in a garden of neatly trimmed flowers—a wildfire in eyes blacker than the deepest night. 

He had been present at her mother’s funeral, and set dear Belladonna to rest with as much fanfare and fireworks as he could bring without setting the Shire itself ablaze. He had watched the last Baggins of Bag End try to contain her grief in the face of pleasant and well-meaning sympathy, little fists clenched so hard he was surprised they had not turned to stone, that she could open them again at all. He had stayed with Bella for a week, even as he felt himself pulled to other matters, far grander and larger than the green paradise where one hobbit’s heart keened and suffered. 

In the years after, he pledged to watch over her, and she, begrudgingly, allowed him. They grew to friends of a kind, or at least she didn’t throw him out of her home when he called on her sporadically, and never with any notice. She always had a bed for him to sleep in, bemoaning the “oversized waste of space” she’d had crafted specifically for him and set in the far corner of Bag End for any unannounced visits. 

Bella Baggins became every bit her mother’s daughter, down to the golden-brown locks and firm, furrowed brow, her dark Took eyes startling even the hardiest hobbits when she neglected to curb their intensity. But even she surpassed her mother for stubbornness. Where Belladonna had been a bouncing, frivolous hobbit, more prone to laughing madly and leaping away rather than enter into a fight, Bella was sharp, cutting—her tongue barbed and her gaze as hot as dragon fire. Perhaps it was the combination of Tookish nerve and Bagginsish obstinance, but Bella Bright Eyes became an imperious force in Hobbiton, kind and polite when it suited her, and utterly dismissive when it didn't. 

Though he would never say it, Gandalf enjoyed greatly seeing the quiet town of Hobbiton bristle and raise its hackles as she walked past, like some lazy house cat reminded why it had been born with claws. For sixteen years, he watched Bella Bright Eyes test the boundaries of her home, straying farther than most, save her mother, but not far enough to tempt herself into leaving altogether. He listened to her speak of a nagging urge in her gut whenever she fell into the burning leaves of her pipe. They sat and smoked, and talked of wilder things while she languished in her tiny world, growing thorns around her wilder heart. He watched her pull up weeds and try to tame her garden, shoving herself into the mold of the Shire her mother had loved so much that no matter how far she wandered, she always came back, though it never fit her like it did her mother.

He told himself that he felt the stirrings of fate around her, and perhaps he did—though he’d never been very good with prophecy, damnably boring thing it was. But the real reason he came back year after year was the sadness that lingered in the corners of her eyes. After all his long years spent walking the realm of Elves and Man, and even Dwarves from time to time, listening to their pain and honoring it, he thought he finally understood a bit of his Lady’s burden as he had never truly understood it before. He came back because he had seen kings and kingdoms rise and fall, fought men who would be gods, witnessed the bend of the earth in his Creator’s eternal vision, but he’d never seen such horrible, burning despair in anyone’s eyes as poor Bella Baggins. 

For all the years he’d spent learning the art of pity and patience, seated beside Nienna, Lady of Suffering, he felt young in the ferocity of this hobbit’s quiet grief.

For sixteen years, he felt the world grow dark. Shadows crept back into the forgotten places of Middle-earth, shadows with familiar voices. He watched the horizon and kept one ear to the winds, feeling his time of peace was ended at last. He looked at the shape of Middle Earth, at the kingdoms in the East, at a Lonely Mountain with a lonely king who needed only a bit of encouragement to push him back homeward, and wondered if there might be more than Tookish fire in the heart of his dear Bright Eyes. 

After all, if he had learned anything over the course of his long, long life, it was that one never knew when such fire, and perhaps a bit of unlikely courage, might make all the difference. 

 

~  ✧ ~

 

Bella crouched on the branch of her tree, watching the dark figure make his way down the winding forest road. She held her breath, and tried hard to keep very still, for she knew dwarves had excellent hearing, and even better sight in the dim shadows of her forest. 

That he was a dwarf wasn’t a question, as Bella had seen dwarves in the taverns of Bree many times, and there was no mistaking the broad shoulders and steady gait. Humans were gangly and skittish, while most hobbits skipped or shuffled, and his shape wasn’t right for either. Dwarves weren’t such an uncommon sight these days, with more and more of them coming down from the Blue Mountains and causing all kinds of fuss amongst her busybody neighbors, but it was odd to see one traveling alone. She’d only ever seen them travel in pairs or triplets. Once a group of five had caused such an uproar in Longbottom, the Thain himself had needed to step in to quell fears of an invasion, or what passed for an invasion by Shire reckoning. 

But she’d never seen one on his own. And never on a road so near Hobbiton. 

He was still a ways off, so Bella chanced crawling a bit further down her branch. The daffodils, nestled precariously in her basket, shuddered as she moved, nearly forgotten in her surprise. Shifting the basket to a steadier position on the trunk behind her, she eased back, and settled her gaze again on the approaching dwarf. 

She’d been traveling the road to Green Hill Country so often the past few years to pick the daffodils here, she felt she knew it intimately, as well as she knew her hill in Hobbiton, and so she had to fight a small bit of annoyance to see someone so clearly foreign interrupting her weekly ritual. Dwarves weren’t inherently unpleasant, not like the rest of the Shire thought, and she had reason enough to count the sight of one a happy surprise, as she’d had a decent conversation with a few in Bree more than once. But they did stir things up, and while she loved a bit of excitement in her dull life, this one looked…different. 

_I sound like Lobelia_ , she thought with a shudder, and put it out of her mind. There was no reason to think a dwarf on his own was such a strange sight. No reason to start spinning tales in her head of dark deeds and nefarious plots that might spur a hardened dwarf to set off on his own in search of— 

He was only a few yards down the road when a trill of birdsong startled her. She jerked back as a large thrush nearly landed on her forehead, and froze as a crack resounded down the quiet road. She had just enough time to let out a small, “Oh,” before the branch under her broke and she toppled to the ground. 

Luckily, her fall was broken by a very solid dwarf. Her world was a mess of limbs and startled grumbling which sounded like stones banging together, until she stopped tumbling and found herself half-sitting on that same dwarf’s chest. Bella stared into pale blue eyes under a heavy black brow, wide and utterly focused on her, before she was unceremoniously thrown to the side. 

She hit the dirt with a thud and felt the fabric of her dress sleeve rip under her mother’s traveling coat. “Steady on you—,” she began, mind scrambling for something and finding anger, as it so often did, only to choke on her words as she looked up into the sharp end of a sword. 

“Give me a reason not to kill you, halfling,” the dwarf said, his voice lower than thunder and somehow cultured even in his threat. 

She blinked, too shocked for fear, and traced the fine edge of the dwarf’s blade with her eyes. It took her a beat to find her wits again, and when she caught sight of a mass of crushed yellow petals under his heavy boot, she said, “You squashed my daffodils.”

The dwarf’s brow furrowed. “What?” 

Bella frowned up at him, looked pointedly at his sword. 

He towered over her, wearing a heavy, worn coat that looked like it had seen better days, but was surprisingly fine. In the dim light of the wood, she saw a few flashes of silver in his long, black hair, the edge of a rich tunic at his wrists. 

“I spent all afternoon picking those daffodils,” she said, a little breathless but trying to sound irate, “and you’ve gone and _squashed_ them with your offending boots.” 

The dwarf cocked his head, looking as if he waited for the end of a joke. He didn’t lower his sword. “You launch yourself out of a tree to attack me only to fail, and you worry about crushed flowers?”

“I didn’t attack you,” she snapped, embarrassment warming her neck and cheeks. “I—I fell.”

“You fell.”

“Yes.”

“Directly onto my head?”

Bella scowled. “It’s not my fault you walked under my branch at the exact moment it broke.”

The dwarf blinked, his severe face a mask of confusion, as if he were caught between yelling at her again, or laughing.

Only then did Bella remember the small knife strapped under her skirts to her thigh, another currently digging its sheath into her waist. She cursed herself for not having the wits to reach for one before this brute had threatened her. She wasn’t a warrior, not by a long shot, but she also wasn’t some gentle hobbit lass without bite. Which he would learn soon enough if he didn’t lower his sword.

If he saw the promise in her eyes, or decided she wasn’t worth the effort, she didn’t know, but after a moment the dwarf stepped away from her and sheathed his sword. “If you are an assassin, you’re the worst I’ve ever met.”

“An _assassin?”_ she scoffed, rising to her elbows and brushing some of the dirt off her dress. She shrugged out of her coat to examine the rip in her sleeve. _Bother it all_ , she thought. She couldn’t take it to her tailor, not so soon after the last one only a few weeks ago, not unless she wanted to be the scandal of Hobbiton. Again. _I’m going to run out of dresses soon._ “Someone thinks very highly of himself, doesn’t he?” 

He sent her a curious look, before bending to retrieve her basket. “Perhaps you should find sturdier branches, if you intend to spy on innocent travelers.” His eyes scanned the forest quickly, a dark look passing over his expression. 

“I wasn’t spying on you,” she muttered, grabbing the basket from his hands and getting shakily to her feet. She must look a mess. She frowned, fighting the urge to shift as pain throbbed at the base of her spine. Something burned on her cheek, and she winced when she pressed fingers to a shallow cut. 

“Are you the guardian of this road, then?” he asked, producing a seemingly clean white handkerchief from his pocket and offering it to her in distraction as he continued to search their surroundings.

What on earth was he looking for? 

She eyed it for a moment, before snatching it from his hand and pressing it gingerly to her cheek. “Never mind what I am.” She braced a hand on her hip and jerked her chin toward the road. “Go on then. You must be in a hurry, if you’re going to threaten the life of anyone who might accidentally delay what I am sure is a _perilously important_ journey.”

He stiffened, turned back to her with an affronted scowl. “You _fell_ on top of me, and you think to take offense?”

“Yes, well, the bruise I’ll have on my ass from your thick head is more than enough to discourage me from the practice in the future.”

“Are all halflings so rude to those they accost in the middle of the woods?”

“Are all dwarves so eager to brandish about their swords like they have something to prove?”

He considered. “When I think on it, yes, they are.”

She deflated, watching his severe expression relax. He still cut an intimidating profile, but there was something almost… _playful_ in his face now. Surprised, wary, but playful. “You’ll find most hobbits don’t generally climb trees,” she said. “You should be clear of any more falling from the sky until you leave the Shire. Although, if you do cross through Tookland, I’d be more concerned with flying cabbages.”

“That would almost be a disappointment after flying hobbits.” He did a once over of her person, his pale eyes searching with no attempt to hide his confused interest. 

She became suddenly hyperaware of the mess of her hair and clothes, and resisted the urge to shift in discomfort.

He, somehow, still looked just as put together as he had a moment ago, with his fine, worn coat and polished leather jerkin. Rings glinted on his fingers, just a few, not as many as some dwarves she’d seen, with their entire family’s wealth displayed on their knuckles for all the world to see. She noticed for the first time the intricate patterns stitched into his clothes and engraved on his sword’s sheath, all proud diamonds and stark lines. Maybe he _was_ someone important, to think assassins were after him and to be wearing such nice clothes. He certainly held his blade with a confidence that spoke to having used it more than once. 

And he wasn’t bad-looking, with that sharp nose and fine, dignified grey at his temples. Not bad-looking for a dwarf, anyway. 

His eyes crinkled at the sides, that smirk growing as he met her gaze again. “I am sorry for crushing your flowers, miss,” he said, inclining his head in a courtly manner. 

“Thank you,” she said automatically, knowing she’d been caught in her examination of him as well. “I’m sorry for…falling on you.”

“No harm done.” His grin widened. “To me, at least.”

She pursed her lips to stop from scowling. 

He took a step back, sketching a slight bow and pressing a hand to his chest. “Safe travels on your journey home. Be wary of the road. You never know whom you might meet in these dark times.”

Bella swallowed her immediate dismissal of his warning—as if she didn’t know every stretch of the Shire better than the back of her own hand—fidgeting as her ingrained loathing of pleasantries fought with her embarrassment. “And you as well, Master Dwarf.”

His lips twitched as he turned, ambling down the wooded path without another glance over his shoulder. 

She watched him until he rounded the bend. A strange urge held her feet in place, told her to wait until she could see him no more. Once he was out of sight, the urge passed, and she sagged, pressing a hand gingerly to her lower back. 

“ _Be wary of the road_ , oh please,” she muttered, feeling the sore spot which would most definitely bruise something fierce. “Blasted dwarf’s actually made of stone.” 

Squatting so as not to bend her back, she collected her scattered things. Scarves and scraps of food were strewn across the road with the crushed remains of her daffodils. None of them could be salvaged, though she was almost glad for the excuse to come back tomorrow. Her mother’s vase would still be empty, and no one would begrudge her the time spent collecting them from the same spot where she and her mother had found them on a return trip from visiting her relatives in the South Farthing years and years ago. Not that she cared what anyone else thought, but it would at least save her the pointed glances. Anything that cut back on the gossip of Hobbiton was a blessing in her eyes. 

She paused in the act of reordering her things, catching sight of a small swatch of night-blue velvet tucked under the wrappings of her crumbled dinner. It was a handkerchief, but far finer than any she had, or any kept by most hobbits. While the fashion of the Shire might be excessively comfortable, they didn’t indulge in useless trinkets or goods. And a velvet handkerchief was too fine for any self-respecting hobbit to empty her nose into. Bella had to concede it was lovely, however. Stitched in some kind of shimmering thread along the edges and in the center was a pattern that reminded her of a mountain, seven stars winking over a single peak, with a diamond at its base. 

“Oh, bother,” she sighed, straightening and turning back to look down the road. The dwarf must have dropped it. Collecting her things as quickly as she could, she jogged down to the bend, but there was no sign of him. 

She sagged, hitching up her meandering sleeve where it had torn free from the rest of her dress and shrugging on her coat. “Confuscated dwarf.”

 

~  ✧ ~

Thorin could not suppress his grin as the hobbit sagged in the middle of the road and began mumbling to herself again. 

Doubling back as soon as he’d ventured far enough out of her sight, he crept through the wood to watch as she gathered up her things. He told himself it was to ensure she wasn’t some assassin sent to trail him along with the others who had been following him from the Tower Hills. One look at her could have told him that much. 

Her rounded face didn’t speak to a lifetime of fighting. She’d probably never had reason to wield a sword, let alone been sent to kill an exiled dwarf-king. Though, he had to admit, as he watched the hobbit kick the dirt up with her large feet and push disheveled golden-brown curls from her face, he should count himself lucky to die with such a soft face above him, that dark gaze the last he ever saw of this world. 

His grin faded at the thought. His failure at Ered Luin was making him morose, if he longed for the gentle beauty of some bothersome hobbit lass to be his final goodbye before venturing into the halls of Mahal. 

He should leave, find the trail of his shadows, if they were truly assassins or merely some humans who thought him easy prey, and get rid of them before meeting that damned wizard in this sleepy green vale. But letting the hobbit wander into a trap set for him left a foul taste in his mouth. Perhaps if he had offered to escort her home…

_A king is not a nursemaid_ , he reminded himself, wondering why she hadn’t moved on yet. She was just standing in the middle of the road, shifting from foot to foot. 

He was still caught in his indecision when the hobbit turned abruptly to the opposite side of the road, withdrew something from under her skirts—Thorin had the faint impression he should avert his gaze, though he still wasn’t sure if she was a _she_ , as hobbits all tended to look the same manner of gentle no matter their sex, and their perplexing clothes didn’t help—and threw what appeared to be a knife with surprising grace. It landed dead center in the middle of a knot and held. 

She sighed, nodded her head, and hopped over to the tree, her step quicker now. 

Thorin’s brow lifted as she yanked the small, thin blade from the tree and slid it between her teeth. She gathered up her wild, curly hair, tying it up where it had escaped in her fall from the tree, and slipped the knife into her bun. 

He eased further into the shadows as she turned back with a firm set to her small chin, and made her way up the road in the direction from whence he’d come. 

Well, that settled that. The girl wasn’t nearly so helpless as she looked, even without her barbed tongue. He’d seen a few hobbits on his travels, not enough to draw any conclusions about them as a whole, but he’d found them a silly, bumbling folk, distrustful of dwarrows, who would no sooner pick up a sword than scale mountains. Perhaps this girl was an outlier. She certainly dressed a bit different, with a sturdy green dress and a worn, red velvet coat which looked made for use rather than ornament. He’d felt some kind of reinforcement over her sides as he threw her off his chest, as well. Perhaps she had armor on under her dress. Most hobbits he’d seen wore bright, obnoxious colors and thoroughly useless linens which would would not stop a blade so much as invite it in.

_Odd thing_ , he thought to himself with a grin, stepping onto the road again as her dirtied green skirts, hitched up to display her hairy feet and ankles, disappeared below a dip in the hills. She’d most likely bought him a few more hours of peace, though she didn’t know it. Whoever was trailing him didn’t seem eager to kill innocent hobbit lasses, no matter how…strange. 

He sighed, rubbed a hand over his forehead, which didn’t hurt from her insubstantial weight falling on him, but felt oddly fragile, and started down the road in the opposite direction. If he was going to lose his escort before meeting the wizard that evening, he’d need to do it soon. It was only his luck that this country was too soft and open to allow for any decent place to set up an ambush. 

“Perhaps I should climb a tree,” he mused under his breath, laughing a bit to himself as he settled his sword belt and pulled his hood once more over his head.


	2. Where the Stolen Roses Grow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Stolen Roses" by Karen Elson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wd0i85dync&index=2&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-)

Bella marched back through Hobbiton as the sun set, furiously not meeting the scandalized gaze of every hobbit she passed who saw her state of dress. She was thinking of all the ways she might have saved herself the embarrassment of earlier that afternoon, and could not spare the energy to play the polite little hobbit. Not today. 

In the hours since meeting that dwarf, she’d gone over the moment again and again, trying to figure out why she hadn’t tried to defend herself. He had pulled a _sword_ on her, and she’d just lay there like a frightened mouse. What was the use of all her practice if she froze up when she actually needed it? She’d endured so much gossip over the past decade and a half for thinking to learn how to defend herself, gone out of her way to ask friendly travelers to point her toward weapon-smiths who wouldn’t laugh outright at the idea of a hobbit wanting to carry a bit of sharp steel, and all for nothing, it seemed. She was just a hobbit playing at the art of war. 

She knew her temper, knew this knot of anger would fester if she didn’t find some way to dislodge it soon, but the only thing for it would be to get out of the curious eyes of her neighbors. She wanted to go camping, get out into the wild and walk about for a few days. She couldn’t go to Bree again. The Sackville-Bagginses were already hovering like vultures around Bag End after her last visit only a month ago. If she left again so soon, she wouldn’t be surprised if Lobelia pounced the day after she left and Bella came back to find her mother’s home ransacked and turned into a garish, multicolored monstrosity covered in frilly orange lace. There was nothing for it. She’d be doomed to a few months of boredom and frustration before she could safely venture out again for freedom and peace of mind.

It wasn’t that Bella hated the Shire or Hobbiton, really—quite the opposite, in fact. She loved the green hills and quiet gardens, the soft glint of sun on the trees and the deep wildflower smell that filled her nostrils wherever she went. She loved it so much it hurt, and the hurting was what she hated. Because every quiet moment, every fresh breeze, every glimpse of neatly-ordered herb gardens or row of turnips, reminded her that she could never leave. 

Her parents lived in the Shire, in her memory of them and the smial they’d built. And she couldn’t leave them. 

Her anger dimmed to a slow-rolling boil as she trudged up the hill to Bag End. She raised a hand to Hamfast Gamgee and conjured up something like a smile, though he seemed more eager to visit with her than he usually was. If she hadn’t been so mired down in her own thoughts, and still-smarting tailbone, she might have seen the alarm in his eyes.

As it was, Bella didn’t see the group mingling outside her door until she was nearly upon them, and only stopped when she smelled the tang of unfamiliar smoking tobacco hanging in a cloud over her garden.  She looked up, and had the strange feeling that she’d just stepped into one of Gandalf’s old stories about hardened, road-weary dwarves sitting on a stranger’s doorstep, all staring out over the little valley with variations on a sad and angry longing. 

Although, if it was one of Gandalf’s stories, it made no sense for him to be sitting here as well. And none of them should be staring at her with expectation in their eyes. 

“Ah, Bella, my dear friend,” Gandalf said with a forced smile, rising to his ridiculous height and maneuvering through the dwarves at the front of the group, “you’ve arrived home at last. I was worried you had perhaps decided to camp for the night. I had half a mind to go out looking for you myself.” He glanced over her dirtied and disheveled attire and grunted in amusement. 

Bella stood frozen at her gate, eyes flicking past her old friend to mark the dwarves, each one looking rougher and more scarred than the last. Indeed, the one standing closest to her door had actual ink tattooed on his bare skull, and looked tall enough to pass for a short human. 

“Is this the hobbit, then?” another, wearing long robes and sporting a truly outrageous tuft of snow-white hair on top of his head, asked in a pleasant enough voice. 

One snorted, younger looking than the rest with a pretty face. “Looks like he got into a fight with a bramble-bush.”

The one next to him, fair-haired to his friend’s darker cast, chuckled, though he tried to hide it with a cough. 

Her eyes snapped back to Gandalf, and the anger which had been mounting since that afternoon burst forth with a vengeance. “No _._ ” 

Gandalf’s eyes widened, knowing her well enough to see she was letting the last threads of her temper unravel. “Now, Bella—”

“No,” she repeated, shoving around his robes and kicking any dwarf appendage what stood between her and her door, earning her grunts in a variety of different voices. “No. No. _No._ ”

She shoved her empty flower basket into the big one’s tattooed hands, surprising him enough to step back from the door as she fumbled for the key around her neck. 

“Find another hobbit to annoy,” she shouted at the door. “I’ve had it with dwarves today. No guests tonight. No, _thank_ you.”

She’d made it inside and was swinging the door shut, when it jarred with a clang. A boot was shoved between it and the frame.  The large dwarf had actually stopped her from shutting her own door. 

“What is this?” he muttered, voice low and menacing, reaching into her home with his foul-looking iron knuckles. 

She moved so fast she surprised even herself, reaching up for the knife in her hair and whipping it out to press against his throat. His eyes widened and went hard, and his hand shot up for one of the axes on his back, but not before a small trickle of blood ran down the edge of her knife. 

The sharp rasp of weapons sounded behind him. Somewhere in the back of her mind she registered how absolutely insane it was to threaten what might have been the fiercest looking warrior she’d ever laid eyes on while he stood in front of his equally dangerous-looking friends, all of whom could probably break her over their knees without much trouble.  But she didn’t care. For at the forefront of her mind burned a singular, ferocious indignation. Who were these ruffians to threaten her on her own doorstep? She didn’t know why Gandalf was with them, and she didn’t rightly care. She was tired, angry, hungry, and thoroughly _done_ for the day.

“I see you have many scars, Master Dwarf,” she muttered, her voice taking on a strange, steely sheen she’d not quite heard before. “Remove your foot from my door and I won’t give you another. If you please.”

The dwarf grimaced, but stood very still as she flexed her grip on her knife. “Bah,” he finally grunted, and stepped back. “If this is your idea of a joke, Greybeard—”

He gave out a quick yelp as Bella slammed the door shut and proceeded to lock herself in. Heart pounding in her ears, she dragged the largest chair she had from her sitting room and propped it under the nob, not paying attention to the sounds of an argument starting up in her garden. 

“Now, really,” Gandalf grumbled, knocking what she assumed was his staff on her door, “is this how you treat old friends?”

“It is when they bring a bunch of uncouth dwarves to my doorstep without so much as a note of warning.”

“I tried to visit yesterday _and_ earlier this morning, but you have been away.”

Bella scowled, glaring at the door. “Then perhaps you should have taken that as your answer for whatever lunatic scheme you’re cooking up, old man!”

“Are you sure that’s a hobbit?” a high voice asked in confusion. “Seems rather unfriendly.”

“Unfriendly?” she practically shouted, stomping over to the window overlooking her garden and throwing it open. “You just tried to barge into my smial without a word of greeting, and you call me _unfriendly?”_

All the dwarves shuffled to look at her as one of them, smaller than the rest with a large nose and round eyes, blushed beet red.  Gandalf shoved his way through, pulling off his hat with a huff. “Perhaps if you had listened to me before shutting yourself up into your house—”

“No more dwarves,” she snapped. “Or old men in dirty robes.”

“ _Belladonna Bright Eyes_ ,” he thundered, the air around him growing dark and reminding Bella all at once that her old, bumbling friend was not just a wandering vagrant, but a wizard with power she could never hope to understand, “have I ever given you reason not to trust me? I beseech you to open your home at once. Is this how your mother taught you to behave in the company of guests?”

She stared at him, her sudden fear fading to a dull roar in her ears. How _dare_ he bring her mother into this mess? How _dare_ he call her that, of all the unspeakably low tactics…dragging up her guilt and love of her _deceased_ mother to use against her? She scrambled for the closest thing she could find—a pot of catnip sitting on her window sill—and chucked it directly at his head. 

Gandalf ducked just in time, letting the pot sail directly into the back of a red-headed dwarf’s head. 

“Go eat your hat, you insufferable old windbag!” She slammed the window shut so hard she thought it might shatter, and stomped back to the entryway. Fuming, she paced, tracking dirt all across her floor and not even caring. 

The worst part was that he was right. Of course she should have listened. Of course she should have welcomed them in, unannounced as they were. She was a Baggins, after all. Her mother _had_ taught her better, and she’d been forcing herself to follow propriety as best she could for the past two decades in honor of her memory. Gandalf _knew_ that, but it didn’t stop her mouth from curling into a deep, embarrassed scowl. Even now, she felt guilt and shame wriggling like worms into the soil of her anger and crumbling its foundations. 

Her mother would have counted the sight of a gaggle of dwarves on her doorstep as a happy surprise, an occasion for celebration. Her father would have counted it the height of discourtesy to threaten one, even if he had been impertinent to the point of rudeness. 

But she was not her parents. And damn the old wizard for reminding her of that fact. 

Bella glared at the door, listening to them grumble and argue and mentally preparing herself for the task of feeding and entertaining a small army of dwarves. Scowling, she dragged the chair away, further scuffing the floor, and took a deep breath. 

Gandalf nearly tipped over as she interrupted his shouting, catching himself on the door frame just before he fell on top of her. 

“Hello,” she said sharply, scanning the dwarves and doing a mental tally. Twelve dwarves, all of them staring at her with expressions ranging from confusion to anger to amusement, and, she noticed in satisfaction, not a small amount of fear. “I apologize for my glibness. I was not expecting company today.” She glowered at Gandalf. “I am unprepared to treat you with the proper courtesy befitting guests of Bag End, but you are all welcome in my smial. Try not to track too much mud in.”

No one moved, until Gandalf beamed at them, said, “You see? I told you she was a gracious host,” and bent to enter. He winked at her, and she resisted the urge to trip him. 

The hard dwarf with the tattooed head came first, keeping a watchful eye on her as he inclined his head. He didn’t seem upset with her having threatened his life, but she supposed looking like he did meant that he was accustomed to violence. “Dwalin, at your service.”

She gave a short, jerking nod and pointed to the next room. “You can sit in there while I get something ready for dinner.”

He grunted in what might have been a laugh or assent, and stomped over. 

The next dwarf followed, the short one with white hair and robes, scanning her with interest and keeping well away from her. “Balin, at your service.”

The two younglings came after, the fair-haired one looking properly cowed as he said, “Fíli,” while the dark-haired one looked positively thrilled as he grinned and said, “Kíli,” both of them finishing at the same time, “at your—”

“I think I’ve got the gist, thank you,” Bella interrupted in frustration. 

So followed the rest, their names blurring into a mass of confusing sounds which might have just as well been grunts. She tried to settle them in her mind, mentally cursing their mothers for giving them all names which sounded so similar. When they were all packed into her sitting room, crowded against one another with their gear and weapons bumping into her mother’s furniture, Gandalf bent toward her and whispered, “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

She reached for his earlobe and tugged. Hard. “Be useful and take their weapons. If anything breaks, I am holding you personally responsible.”

“Surely not for the pot _you_ threw at me?”

“That too,” she muttered, noting with interest as the pleasant young dwarf with dark hair, _Kíli_ , she thought, jumped quickly to help Gandalf. Her eyes stuck on his face, reminding her faintly of the dwarf she’d encountered that afternoon, though much younger and with dark brown eyes instead of light blue. 

She swallowed the thought that perhaps they were related, because if there were this many dwarves in the Shire they were clearly all connected somehow, and said loudly, “Give me ten minutes and then come to the dining room. There are a few tables you can drag together, but if you move anything, be careful to set it down _gently_.” She eyed a few sporting rough-looking hands, one with—great stars, an _axe_ buried in his head, twitching in a way that made her nervous for the pottery passed down from her great aunt Twigwalla Baggins. Though, she’d never liked the stuff all that much. Maybe the dwarves would smash the atrocious tea set Lobelia had given to her at her last birthday party. 

Her spirits marginally improved, she ducked out and left the dwarves to their business while she tried to gather together something to tide them over until her pies had warmed up. She came out to find them all waiting in the dining room, seated around three more tables shoved into the little nook and looking uncomfortable. 

“I assume dwarves eat biscuits,” she said, making the little one with big eyes jump as she set a plate down in front of him—Lori, maybe, or something along those lines—and slid two more down to the rest of the patiently waiting dwarves.

Gandalf chuckled, lounging back and already puffing on his long pipe. “I am sure the Company will be happy for anything you give them, my dear.”

She turned to the tattooed dwarf and jerked her head toward the kitchen. “Come help me with the cheese and I can do something about that cut,” she said, eyeing the line of blood trailing down his neck with guilt. 

He stiffened along with the rest of the group, all of them turning wide, disbelieving eyes on her. 

“Do I have to?” he grunted around mouthful of biscuit, looking almost more afraid of this than he had of her knife. 

He must have correctly taken her silence to mean ‘yes’, for he shoved off from the table with a deep scowl and shot the two younglings a dark glare when they started laughing. His footsteps followed her like an earthquake, stopping when she pointed at a stool next to her sink. 

“I am sorry about your neck,” she murmured, arching a brow when he hovered in the doorway, looking entirely out of place in her kitchen with his rough exterior and travel-worn clothes. 

“If you think your little letter opener did more than a bad shave,” he started as he sat heavily, trailing off when he saw her expression. “Ah, I’ve had worse.”

“I can see that.” She got out a small bowl, picking a few leaves from the kingsfoil she kept on a shelf, and mashed them down with some water. “Though I’m still sorry.”

The dwarf watched her with a deep furrow in his brow. 

“Is it rude to apologize to a dwarf?” she asked in frustration, edging around his massive form to wipe the blood clean from his neck. The cloth came away with more dirt than blood, and she fought to keep her expression clear as she dabbed the herb mixture into the cut. 

“No.”

“Well then why are you staring at me like I’ve got three heads?”

He looked down at her with the beginnings of a grin. “Anyone ever tell you you’re an odd little— _ach_.”

She’d pressed too hard into his cut and started the whole thing bleeding again. _Damn._  “Don’t call me little or odd, thank you,” she snapped, wondering who in the world had taught this mountain of a dwarf manners. She might lose her temper from time to time, but honestly, it seemed like he was _trying_ to insult her.  “Dwalin, right?” 

“Aye,” he muttered slowly, as if she were some feral beast who might lunge if startled. 

“Word of advice? When someone looks to be slamming their door shut in an attempt to keep out visitors, don’t shove your way in.”

“Don’t mean to offend, ah, hobbit—”

“Bella.”

He blinked, and continued, “Bella, but I’ve found that’s sometimes the only way to get where one needs going, in my experience.”

She frowned, eased the cloth from his neck when it had stopped bleeding, wiping clean the excess kingsfoil mush, and hummed in consideration as she rinsed out the cloth and set it aside for washing. 

“Again, don’t mean to offend,” Dwalin said, raising his hands in a gesture of peace, though the effect was somewhat diminished by the iron knuckles he wore, “but what’s a hobbit like you need a knife for?”

She cocked her head, noting with amusement the eyes peering around the corner at her, listening in to their conversation. “To fend off the voles, of course.”

His eyes narrowed. “Voles?”

“Have you ever seen a Shire vole? We hobbits might be small, but the voles who eat our berries and carrots are three times the size of your average dormouse, with nasty, big, pointy teeth.” She mimed such teeth with her fingers, expression grim. “Bite your hand clean off, if you’re not careful. But I’m rather fond of my produce and I’ll be damned if I let the buggers scamper off with even one of my potatoes.”

The dwarf stared, his expression hard and severe, before he let out a resounding bark of laughter. The pots and pans hanging over him shook as he slapped his knee, deftly catching a strainer that slipped off its hook without looking away from her. 

“Aye, I see the danger,” he laughed, shaking his head as he rose to his feet. 

“Take this with you,” she said, trying not to grin as she handed him a heaping platter of cheese and more bread, some herbed butter and jam, and the last of her elderflower honey. “And send someone back for the pies, please.”

“ ’Scuse me, ah, _Bella_ ,” a dwarf said from the hall, edging around Dwalin as he continued to stomp toward the dining room.

Bella thought he had called himself Bofur, though she didn’t chance it and only said, “Yes?”

He forced a pleasant smile on his face, the curve matching the drooping ears of his hat. “I don’t suppose you have any wine or ale you might be willing to part with?”

She sighed, chastising herself. They were dwarves, after all. 

“Don’t worry yourself, it’s no matter,” he said quickly, edging back as she walked toward him. 

“No, no, I do. Come on.” She paused, scanned the group with a keen eye. “I’ll need a few more hands, I think.”

The dark-haired one jumped up with a grin as his companion shot her a wary look and joined him. _Kíli_ , she told herself, said, “We’d love to help.”

“Yes,” the other one, Fíli, murmured with a more subdued smile, “we would.”

Bella eyed them both, noting the impish gleam in Kíli’s eyes. “I don’t suppose anyone’s going to tell me why twelve dwarves decided to pass through the Shire and sup at my house,” she said as she led them down to the cellar. 

“But it’s such a lovely house,” Kíli said.

Bella rolled her eyes as someone coughed in a rather pointed way. “Thank you, Kíli.”

“You remember my name?”

“You said it to me not twenty minutes ago,” she said tartly, turning around and causing them all to stop and bump into each other. “I should hope my mind is up to such a simple task.”

Fíli snorted as Kíli’s smile widened. Only Bofur looked appropriately embarrassed as he said, “We sort of thought you’d been made aware of the meeting.”

“Gandalf told us you’d be happy to have us,” Fíli said. 

“Did he.” She turned and began to roll out barrels to the three of them, letting them take two apiece. “And what is this meeting about?”

Kíli opened his mouth to speak, when Fíli elbowed him in the ribs and said pointedly, “We should probably wait for our _leader_.”

“True, he’ll know all the specifics,” Bofur said with a pleasant smile, hoisting his barrels up and seeming to wait for her permission to leave. 

Bella looked them all over as her earlier suspicion resurfaced. “This leader of yours, does he look like you?” she asked Kíli.

For the first time since meeting him, his face fell and a serious expression settled onto his fine features.  _Well. That settles that_ , she thought with a scowl as she saw the resemblance at once. 

“And how would you know that?”

Bella nudged them all aside, trying to ignore the shame behind her ears. “I met him earlier today, and I thought you looked familiar.”

“Did you really?” he asked, voice sounding light and excited again. “He’s my uncle, mine and Fíli’s.”

_Brothers. Wonderful._ “Are any of the rest of you related?”

As Kíli began to lay out their many family ties, the web nearly as tangled as one she might find in Shire records, Bella realized not only was she entertaining a group of dwarves, she was playing host to a family reunion of sorts. 

“Ah, I was wondering when you’d bring up the wine,” Gandalf said with a smile, not at all bothered by Bella’s sharp glare. 

“Thank you, lad,” the older dwarf, Balin, said with relief. 

Bella froze in the act of opening one of the barrels of ale. 

“Yes,” Kíli said with a grin, clapping a hand to her shoulder, “thank you, indeed, Master Boggins.”

She looked from the young dwarf to Gandalf, who had adopted a pained expression, and started to laugh. 

“Did I say something wrong?” Kíli asked, his grip tightening in concern as Bella doubled over. 

“Your host is a woman, young Kíli,” Gandalf said with a sigh.

Kíli’s hand jerked back as if it’d been burned. “What? Really?”

“ _Master Boggins_ ,” she choked through her laughter, reaching out and grabbing the nearest arm to keep herself standing. “Oh my, that’s the best thing I’ve heard all month.”  She straightened, releasing Fíli’s arm and patting him on the shoulder. He stood rigid, though there was a growing smile on his face.  “I’ve never gotten that one before,” she sighed with a hiccup, and wiped tears from her cheeks. 

“You’re a lass?” Dwalin said with might have been a scowl or a grin, she couldn’t tell.

“I wasn’t trying to trick you, honest,” she caught her breath and looked over the rest of the company, all of them wearing similar looks of confusion. 

“Well, you are wearing a coat,” Kíli said with a frown, staring hard down at her chest. "It's hard to tell you hobbits apart."

She chuckled and unbuttoned her mother’s traveling coat to reveal the top of her dress and the swell of her breasts. The look of sudden realization on his face, and then furious blush was almost worth the trouble. Though, she noted with amusement, his brother had to jab him sharply with his elbow to make him look away. “I suppose skirts aren’t a given, hm?” She eyed Balin’s and Gandalf’s robes with a wide grin. “And I am a mess, aren’t I? I suppose I could pass for a mound of dirty drapes at this point.”

“No, you look—I mean,” Bofur started, eyes locked firmly on her face. “You look lovely, Miss, ah, Madam _Baggins_.”

_I’m not_ that _well-endowed,_ she thought with a snort. “Just Bella.”

“Right.” Bofur snatched off his hat and did something of a curtsey. 

“Now the manners surface,” she muttered, shaking her head. “I’m going to clean up. If I’m not back in ten minutes, check on the pies. I don’t fancy my house burning down.”  Before she left, however, she snatched Gandalf’s pipe from his mouth and ignored his disgruntled cry. “If I’m not mistaken, _Greybeard_ , this is my strain of Old Toby you’re smoking. Count it as payment for this,” she waved the pipe over the assembled dwarves, “happy surprise.”

With one more pointed grin, she placed the pipe between her lips and ambled off to her rooms, feeling downright chipper as she puffed, relaxing for the first time since entering her home that night and mumbling, "Boggins. Delightful."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I suppose it's obvious by now but I am going to be stretching my characterization of Bella quite a bit. I love the fussy, uptight Bilbos (fem or otherwise) as much as everyone else, but I wanted to write someone a bit more sharp, and a bit less likeable (mostly because Thorin is both of those things in spades, and I like conflict in my pairings). Just something to be aware of going forward.
> 
> Thank you guys for the response! Your comments make my day <3
> 
> ALSO I commissioned some [art of Bella](https://eveninglottie.tumblr.com/post/165193211064/of-all-the-names-bella-baggins-ever-held-her) (because I have no self-control), so you can see how I picture her!


	3. Light Bleeding into Dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Who Will Carry You?" by Adam Jones](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGfl86ScRus&index=3&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-)

Thorin stood outside the door to the hole in the ground, paralyzed by the sounds of familiar voices.  He was late—dispatching those assassins had taken longer than he’d expected. He was tired, he was hungry, and the warmth swirling out from the open windows spoke to him with all the seductive comfort of a lover.

But still he stood, staring at the simple green door with the glowing khuzdul rune scratched into its paint. His feet would not move, and in his heart yawned a towering emptiness. It had been years since he’d stood on the threshold of any home that could truthfully be called comfortable. Ered Luin was homely enough, but it was not _home_ , and the constant bickering of the dwarrow-clans made it a cold and drafty place in more than just its physical presence. The only reason he’d lived there at at all was to be with his sister and nephews, and that had not been for a long time. The place was a painful reminder that home was not those small blue mountains and unfamiliar halls.  Home was far away, over leagues of rocky mist and forest. Home was buried by dragon fire and screaming, and an endless march toward certain death. Home sat in the small company of loyal friends and family on the other side of this simple green door a nd it terrified him, because home was also his birthright and his crown, his burden and responsibility, and even after one hundred and seventy years of waiting, he still didn’t know if he was ready. 

_You’ll never know if you stand outside the door like an ass_ , a voice which sounded vaguely like his sister’s whispered into the back of his mind. His mouth twitched. He fingered the key sitting in his pocket, drawing what strength and certainty from it he could, and knocked on the door. 

The noise from inside dimmed, and he looked around to distract himself, frowning when he saw a smashed pot next to the door. He pitied the poor hobbit Gandalf had convinced to house them for the night, this expert burglar the wizard had spoken of when he found him in Bree all those months ago.  He expected heavy footfalls, or a grumble of annoyance at his tardiness as the door opened.  What he found instead was a hobbit with bright black eyes and neatly ordered golden brown curls twisted behind her head, wearing a simple, clean dress and an expectantly arched brow. A familiar hobbit, one whose face had popped in and out of his mind that evening as he wandered through the garden hills, wondering idly if she lived in this part of the Shire. 

“Well are you going to just stand there and let all the warmth out?” she said brusquely. 

“You,” he managed, wondering at the odds. 

“Me. I was as pleased as you when I found out.” She looked him over, taking in the bruise on his chin with sharp focus. He’d dispatched the assassins tailing him easily enough, but one had gotten a blow in before the end. He fought the urge to shift under her imperious gaze.

“Bella, really,” a gruff, rumbling voice echoed from behind her, followed by a tall form covered in grey robes bending to look through the door at him. “Let the poor fellow inside.”

The hobbit’s eyes narrowed, and Thorin felt himself pinned by something other than his own reluctance, before she stepped aside and inclined her head. 

“Gandalf,” he said with a questioning glance. The wizard hovered behind the hobbit with annoyance etched on his face, but gave him a nod of greeting. 

The house was surprisingly nice, if small, and entirely too warm for his taste. The linens were rich and thick, every inch speaking to a level of comfort and ease he’d found rampant in the rest of this little green country. Everything was wood, polished and neat, but wood still. It dragged up his old fear of fire, of it catching and burning the whole place down around him, and he fought to keep his expression clear. 

His eyes kept straying back to the hobbit, however, who was watching him with great interest, and not a little challenge in her eyes. Now that he had a chance to look at her without the film of shock, he noticed she looked different from the little spitfire who’d fallen on him earlier. Clothed now in a fine, mint-green dress, and an apron with vegetables stitched into the edging, she looked…odd. Even in their brief meeting that afternoon, she’d fixed firmly in his mind with a velvet red overcoat and olive green skirt hiked up to her knees, dirt smeared on her face, hair wild and askew. Now she looked like a badger shoved into a lacy doily. 

“Bella Baggins,” Gandalf said after an awkward pause where both she and Thorin studied one another, “allow me to introduce the leader of our company, Thorin Oakenshield.”

Her lips pursed. “Charmed.”

“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Baggins.” He shrugged off his coat and added, “Again.”

“Have you two met?” Gandalf said in surprise.

“We ran into each other earlier today,” she said before he could speak, holding out a small hand for his cloak. 

He couldn’t help his grin as he allowed her to take it. “Is that what happened?”

Her eyes narrowed, and a blush blossomed on her cheeks. 

“How serendipitous,” Gandalf muttered, eyes flicking between the two of them in suspicion. 

“So, this is your hobbit,” Thorin mused, walking around her in a show of looking her over.

She stepped into his path, staring up at him with an annoyed scowl. “I’m not anyone’s anything,” she snapped, walking past him with her button nose in the air.

“She looks more like a gardener than a burglar,” he mused, watching her go with a bemused smile.

“I’ll thank you not to gossip about me in my own house,” she shouted at the end of the hall, not bothering to turn around, “and I should count it satisfactory that you take me for a gardener, as that’s what I _am_.”

“She has sharp ears,” Gandalf said after a moment’s silence.

“And a sharper tongue,” someone muttered from a side room. 

Thorin grinned as he laid eyes on Dwalin, and stepped into his old friend’s rough embrace. “How long has it been?”

“Too long,” Dwalin muttered darkly, clasping his shoulder with an affectionate shove only to notice the signs of his earlier fight. “What happened?”

“I got lost. Twice,” he said with a pointed glance, holding Dwalin’s gaze long enough to convey his need for secrecy. He didn’t want his Company worrying over him already. 

With every reunion he felt his heart lighten, until the shadows he’d dragged with him to the hobbit’s door seemed to slough off in the warmth and cheer of old and new friends. It wasn’t many who’d answered his call, but it would be enough. It would have to be. His nephews hovered close by, the tension in their shoulders apparent as they tried to play confident for the older dwarves. Fíli especially seemed more solemn than usual, quiet where his brother laughed more loudly, as if he might trick himself into stoicism. 

He’d wondered if they were ready, so young still, but they had refused to take ‘no’ for an answer, and he had agreed to lead them into this madness, to whatever end it might hold.

He shoved the thought aside, grinning across a hap dash table as Glóin lamented the long trek from Ered Luin and the general lack of suitable taverns on the road to Hobbiton. 

“Yes, but who could find a tavern as lovely as dear _Miss_ Baggins’ home?” Kíli said loudly, earning a surprisingly eager outcry of agreement from the rest of the Company. 

“He called her Master Boggins earlier,” Fíli whispered into Thorin’s ear as the hobbit, looking thoroughly unimpressed, set another heaping meat pie onto the table. “I think he’s trying to win back her favor.”

“Hard to win back what was never given in the first place,” she said pleasantly, earning a few laughs. Kíli, to his credit, only seemed encouraged, grinning and watching the hobbit walk away with a determined glint in his eyes. 

Now that Thorin noticed, many of the Company were wearing equally cowed or fascinated expressions as they watched the hobbit slip amongst them with a strange, manic grace. “It seems our burglar is acting more like a governess,” he murmured under his breath, giving Dwalin a curious look as he scowled. “She’s mouthy, yes, but surely not something to fear?”

“She nearly cut Mister Dwalin’s throat earlier,” Fíli said. “You should have seen his face, uncle. More emotion than the old boar's shown in decades.”

“The lass surprised me, is all,” Dwalin grunted, eyes flashing to the side to check that she was out of earshot. “Didn’t expect her to have a knife shoved into those curls of hers.”

“She still got the better of you,” Fíli muttered, hiding his grin with his tankard. 

Thorin noticed the red on his cheeks, and grabbed the tankard before he could finish his gulp. “I think that’s enough for you, nephew.”

Fíli scowled and sulked, but leaned back into his chair, eyes following the hobbit closely. 

He knew it was only a youngling’s drive to trail after the first skirts that passed their way, but it made Thorin wary. His nephews had been so heavily mothered in Ered Luin, he hadn’t considered what they might get into once they were let loose into the wider world. 

“She threatened you?” he asked, less surprised by the hobbit than by Dwalin’s discomfort. He wasn’t the kind of dwarf to let a woman besting him get under his skin. He’d be the first to list all his female relatives and praise their battle prowess in excruciating detail, and hang any man who thought different. His admiration for Thorin's sister, Dís, was well known, as was her thorough and continuous trouncing of him once Thorin had agreed to start teaching her swordplay as a girl. 

Dwalin sank into his seat, watching the hobbit with sharp eyes. It had been awhile since he’d sat with his old friend, but Thorin could not miss the way Dwalin’s posture changed subtly every time the hobbit entered the room or left it. He was treating her like a threat.  “Like I said,” he muttered, popping a whole square of cheese into his mouth, “she surprised me.”

“The hobbit seems to hide many surprises,” Thorin agreed. 

“The hobbit has a name.”

If he’d lived a simpler life, he might have jumped at the sound of her voice, not on the other side of the room, where he’d last seen her, but directly across the table, somehow appearing between Bifur and Bombur. 

“A very nice one,” Kíli said at once.

“Enough,” Thorin said, shooting his nephew a long stare. The boy sagged, not quite sulking like his brother, but cowed, for now. “Leave the poor Miss Baggins alone. She’s had what I’m sure was an eventful day.”  He looked back at the hobbit with a friendly smile, only to hold in a gaze that conveyed deepest loathing. Bifur and Bombur actually shrank to either side. 

“Hard to scold children for taking after their uncle,” she said slowly, not even blinking. “At least none of them have pulled a sword on me yet.”

The silence in the little dining room held as Thorin refused to drop her gaze. _An irate badger, then,_ he thought, drinking slowly from his tankard. “Do you plan on falling on any of them?”

“Once was enough,” she said with a small, menacing smile. “The experience was so unsatisfactory that I don’t think I’ll ever tumble onto a dwarf again.”

Glóin snorted so spectacularly, he shot a spurt of ale clean across the table, nearly splashing Dori full in the face. 

The hobbit's smile turned saccharine. “Do you frequently turn women off from tumbling after you’ve drawn your sword on them, Master Oakenshield?”

Thorin let out a surprised laugh, impressed despite himself. “Cutting words, Miss Baggins.”

The table relaxed when they realized Thorin was not taking her jabs to heart.

“I can find something sharper if you like.” With that, she snatched up a few empty pie tins and swayed out of the room. 

He watched her go, realizing too late he was following the movement of her hips—small compared to a dwarf’s, but nice enough under her swaying skirts—and looked away. 

“How exactly did you two meet, Thorin?” Dwalin asked.

“We were traveling down the same road when she fell out of a tree directly onto my head.” He grinned, finishing the last of his stew. “She was picking flowers and I startled her.”

“ _You_ didn’t startle me,” she called from the kitchen. “A _bird_ startled me. _You_ couldn’t startle a flock of sheep.”

“Where did you find this girl, Gandalf?” Balin asked, shaking his head at Thorin in a mixture of weary concern and amusement. 

“She is not an interesting pebble, Master Balin,” Gandalf said with a scowl, refilling his wine glass. “Nor is she an oddity to mock. She is an old, dear friend, and highly capable of the task required of her.”

Fíli rose to his feet, elbowing Kíli before gathering up dirty plates. “Come on, we’re being bad guests.” He tipped most of the Company’s leftovers onto Bombur’s plate, who seemed more than happy to finish off what food remained. Soon enough, they were making a game of throwing plates to one another, the Company merrily accompanying them with cutlery and hand-clapping.  Thorin was about to tell them to settle down, enjoying the boisterous cheer after a long month spent traveling alone, when the hobbit came back into the dining room, carrying a platter of what looked like tarts, and snatched a plate from the air before Fíli could catch it. 

“Really?” she snapped, eyes slashing from dwarf to dwarf, finally resting and burrowing into Thorin with an impressive malice. 

Bofur and Ori slammed down their cutlery at once and Kíli tried to hide the soup tureen he was holding behind his back. 

Gandalf rose, took the tarts from her hand and ushered her gently out of the room. “Perhaps you should bring up that marvelous vineyard vintage for the Company—the year was 1296, if I remember correctly. I’ll help you.”

The hobbit muttered something under her breath and let herself be steered away. Thorin did not envy the old wizard her taming, if such a thing were even possible.

Bofur hummed a little tune as soon as they were gone, finishing off with, “Oh, that’s what Bella Baggins hates.”

“I’d hold my tongue if I were you, lad,” Balin said with a grin, “or you’re like to lose it.” His pale eyes danced back to Thorin, still sharp as diamond in his old age. “So, Thorin. What news from Ered Luin?”

A hush fell over the group as they all turned to him. 

It had become an easy thing, to draw on the mantle of the king, to sit up straighter and smooth out his voice, to project the certainty his people needed. But it was not comfortable, and he was starting to think it would never be. 

“All seven kingdoms were present,” he started, hating the ripple of hope that sprang up in their grunts of assent and eagerness. “But none will come.”

“The dwarves of the Iron Hills?” Dwalin asked, his face hard in acceptance. 

Thorin shook his head. “This quest is ours, and ours alone, it seems.” Rumblings of doubt and disappointment echoed through the room, and he raised a hand for quiet. “But I would have it no other way. Love, and loyalty, and the courage in your hearts. I ask for this alone, and would take nothing more.”

It wasn’t a lie. He would not refuse a few hundred well-seasoned dwarven soldiers, but their journey would be long, and unwilling hearts were easily swayed by the hardships of the wilds. He knew each and every dwarf seated before him, knew their mother’s and father’s names, their wives and partners, for the lucky few. His Company was small, but sure, and if he were to embark on this mad quest, he would do it with friends, not subjects. 

“The portents have been read,” Glóin muttered, pounding a fist on the table in punctuation. “It is time. Hang the rest if they cannot see that.”

“The birds return to Erebor,” Óin agreed, nodding sagely. “Ravens have been spotted circling the mountain.”

“Then it is time we see for ourselves if the dragon is dead,” Balin finished.

Thorin met his gaze, seeing certainty and faith in the old dwarf’s eyes. 

“Dragon?” 

All eyes flashed to the hall, where the hobbit stood with a bottle of wine in her hand. 

With a wave of unease, Thorin saw her with fresh eyes. Under her stubborn mouth and scowl, there lay a soft, unseasoned woman more suited to gardening than war. What was the wizard thinking, asking such a little, fragile creature to join them?

“Ah,” Gandalf grumbled, meeting Thorin’s gaze with unerring intent, as if the old man had read his mind, “we’ve come to our business at last. Bring us some light, will you, Bella?”

The wizard unfurled a map from his robes, stretching it out across the table. Silence fell over the company as they all stared at the singular peak in the upper right corner. 

“The Lonely Mountain?” the hobbit asked from behind Thorin’s shoulder.

He stiffened at her voice, but murmured, “The dwarven kingdom of Erebor.”

“Currently presided over by the chiefest and greatest calamity of our time,” Bofur mused with a hard smile, “the great wyrm, Smaug.”

“The beast has not been seen for sixty years,” Thorin said before the company’s mutterings could grow. “And we are not the only ones who have read the portents. Many will seek to claim the great treasure of our people.”  He met Dwalin’s gaze, and then Fíli’s.  “I know what I risk in reclaiming my home,” he said, slowly, looking round the table. “That is my burden. It need not be yours.”

“Hang that,” Bofur said with a scowl, adding, “respectfully, of course.”

“We are here to follow you, Thorin,” Balin murmured, reaching over and gripping his hand. 

“Aye,” Dwalin roared, aided by a great pounding of fists and cheers. 

“Erebor is ours.” Fíli stood, braced his hands against the table, forced determination shining in his eyes. “I will not let our kingdom fall to scavengers. I say we march.” A strong speech, from his nephew, but one that rang a bit too fervent. If Fíli was putting it on for his benefit, he was doing a decent job of it. But Thorin knew his nephew. He was not prone to grand claims and bold acts. His was a quieter soul, and seeing him try hard to fit in with the rest of the group made Thorin feel again the stirrings of guilt.

“Besides,” Kíli added, “we have a wizard at our side. Even if the dragon lives, Gandalf will know what to do. I’m sure he’s killed hundreds of dragons.”

A small snort broke the fervor of the group.

Thorin turned to see the hobbit giving Gandalf a sideways glance. The wizard seemed reluctant to meet anyone’s eyes. 

“It won’t matter either way if we can’t get in,” Balin said darkly. 

At that, the wizard looked to Thorin, arching one brow in encouragement.  Feeling a little foolish for the theatrics, he produced the heavy key from his pocket. “There is a hidden door on the side of the mountain. If we can find it, we can enter.”

“The royal entrance,” Balin murmured, eyes roving from the key to Thorin’s face in shock. “How?”

“I crossed paths with Thráin before he died,” Gandalf said, resting a hand on Thorin’s shoulder. “He gave me that key for safe keeping, to pass on to his son, when the time was right.”

Thorin steeled himself for the rush of grief, for the guilt at not finding his father when he still lived. A small part of him hated that it had been the wizard to sit with him in his final moments, but…his father had not been alone, at least. To die alone was a worse fate than any he could imagine, worse even than dying in disgrace. 

Balin’s eyes shined with moisture, but he nodded, as if in assent. The old dwarf had been a dear friend to his father, a councilor. He had gone with Thráin on their first mad quest to retake Erebor all those years ago, and it was Balin who had come back, and told Thorin he had become king.

“The lair of a dragon is a dangerous place, and the wyrm has had too much time to learn its secrets well,” Thorin murmured, slipping the key back into his pocket. "This task of yours will require stealth, Gandalf."

“Indeed, along with a fair bit of courage.” The wizard’s eyes flicked to the hobbit. 

Thorin only then realized that it had been a long time since she’d spoken, the longest, in fact, since he’d entered her home.  Again, he studied her, noting the carefully blank expression on her face. Without anger or annoyance twisting her soft features, she looked older, with a maturity hidden behind her bright black eyes. Eyes, it looked, that had seen pain, in her own way. Those eyes met his and held, a question forming in them. 

“That’s why we need a burglar,” Ori piped up from the other end of the table.

Her eyes narrowed, looking to Gandalf as they all waited for her answer. 

“She seems capable enough,” Balin mused. “What experience do you have in burgling, Miss Baggins?”

She blinked, opened her mouth to speak only to shut it again. 

“Her experience lies in her skill, dear Balin,” Gandalf said when she remained quiet. “Hobbits are remarkably light on their feet, with senses rivaling that of an elf. She is smart, and cunning, and the fiercest soul I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. She is your fourteenth member.”

“She nearly made Dwalin piss himself,” Bofur said congenially. “That’s not nothing.”

“Watch it,” Dwalin grumbled, though he didn’t argue the point.

“And she surprised our uncle,” Kíli added with a wide grin, going so far as to wink at her. 

Thorin watched the hobbit’s face tighten, not shrinking in on herself, but hardening, as if preparing for a blow. After a long silence, he murmured, “Well? What say you, Miss Baggins?”

Her small jaw clenched, staring daggers at Gandalf, before she said, “What is this place to you? You keep saying ‘home,’ but you seem rather far afield, if that’s the case.”

“The dragon came one hundred and seventy years ago, lass,” Balin murmured, eyes swimming with the memory of that terrible day. “It burned us out, destroyed our families, ripped stone apart, and crushed our kingdom in its jaws. We’ve been homeless ever since. It is our legacy and our loss, and the only future left to us, save the slow erasure of time.”

Thorin let the memory pass over him, washing up against that hardened place in his heart which recalled the smell of burning flesh, the earth-shattering tremble as halls built by his forefathers crumbled in the wake of a malice flying on blood-red wings. 

The hobbit stared, the furrow in her brow the only sign of any sympathy as she looked over the table. At last, she met Thorin’s gaze, that question and doubt near shouting at him from her eyes.  “Who are you?” she asked, voice firm but small. 

He almost smiled at the accusation in her eyes. “I am Thorin, son of Thráin, son of Thrór, heir to Heart of the Lonely Mountain, and rightful king of Erebor.”

She didn’t react except to widen her eyes, glance once toward Gandalf as she shifted. “Well. A king sits in my house. I suppose I should have brought out the good plates.”

A ripple of nervous laughter went through the Company, but the tension held, all of them waiting. 

Thorin wondered what it was Gandalf saw in her. She had spirit, that much was plain, and might one day be skilled with a blade, if her show of knife-throwing spoke to an innate talent. But she was soft, no matter the bite in her tongue or the fire in her eyes, and that in and of itself was not a mark of quality. Fire consumed everything, no matter who wielded it, and she seemed more willing to stoke it than control it. 

Her lips pursed. “I’ll think on it.”

He felt a flash of annoyance. “We leave tomorrow. If you are to join us, you decide now.”

“Then I’ll decide before you leave tomorrow,” she said archly. “I assume you’re all sleeping here for the night, even though no one asked.” She turned on her heel and left without waiting for an answer. 

“I hope she does come,” Bofur murmured. “Seems like the kind of lass to get into all sorts of exciting trouble.”

“You could convince her, uncle,” Fíli said casually, hiding his interest poorly. “She’ll listen to you.”

Dwalin snorted. “I’m not so sure of that, lad.”

“I’ll talk to her,” Kíli said, starting to his feet. 

“No,” Thorin said, silencing the group before anyone else could offer to beg their host to join them on a quest which clearly did not move her. “If the hobbit wants to join, she will join, but she will decide without any more convincing.”

“Give her time,” Gandalf muttered as the Company began to clear out of the dining room and make for other parts of the sprawling home. “Dear Bella Bright Eyes has the heart for it, that much I am sure of, but she is a stubborn girl. Leaving her home will not be an easy thing for her.”

Thorin mulled over the thought, watching the hobbit distribute a seemingly endless supply of blankets and pillows, her demeanor markedly subdued. He placed himself in her position—would he leave his comfortable, quiet home to help a group of strangers? Perhaps, if the cause were great enough.  But wondering at the thoughts of a hobbit, a creature so different from him, with different cares and fears, and a heart which had known only peace, was an exercise in madness.  If the hobbit joined them, she joined them. It counted for little in the long run, no matter the wizard’s insistence that she was somehow vital to their quest. 

As Thorin settled in for the night, he watched the hobbit closely for some sign of her decision, and tried to put it from his mind. If he noticed she had an exceedingly lovely face, a laugh which stirred warmth in his chest, and eyes which seemed to catch the light wherever she went, that too he put from his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously I fudged a bit of the details with Thorin knowing of the secret entrance and Gandalf giving it to him before the party. I've done that from time to time (honestly because I didn't remember all the details form the movies and it's been ages since I've read the book - if you need clarification on anything, feel free to ask). Also, I will be using dwarrows only to apply to plural dwarves and a few other instances. I know I've read fics where the term is used a lot, but this is what I settled on for me. So many little details, guys :P


	4. Come Away, Come Away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["The Hill of Thieves" by Cara Dillon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfpG6nVcoCY&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-&index=4)

Bella stood at the edge of her sitting room, leaning in the doorway and watching the dwarves sing of their lost home. 

Their voices were beautiful, haunting—like deep bells and drums echoing through a vast chamber. She tried not to watch the king closest, but it was difficult. He had a lovely voice, a voice of thunder rolling over mountains and moonlight shining on hidden, still lakes. If he’d been a simple brute, she might have forgiven him more easily for seeming unrepentant about their interaction earlier, but he was solemn, with surprisingly gentle eyes that he showed in flashes as he looked at his companions.

It was strange, hearing of a place she’d never been, from men she’d met only hours ago, but it pulled at her, at the center of her being where dwelt something small and fragile behind the thorns she’d wrapped around herself over the last few decades of solitude. She couldn’t put it into words. She could barely decide if it was excitement or dread, longing or revulsion, which left her frustrated beyond belief. It was like the language they sang was older and deeper than she knew, even if their words were familiar. 

She had always prided herself on knowing her heart, on knowing what she wanted, even if she didn’t get it. Standing at the edge of her sitting room, listening to them sing of fire and smoke and lost kingdoms, she wondered if what she thought had been her heart was really a door, opening onto a far, unknowable country.

“I hope you’re not planning on using that again,” Gandalf murmured from behind her. 

She frowned, looked down at the knife she hadn’t realized she was turning idly over her fingers. “My father gave me this knife. Said it was his favorite for peeling potatoes.” She slid it into the pocket of her apron and straightened. “I hate to think what he’d say if he heard I used it to threaten a dwarf.”

“Your father was a gentle soul, it’s true, but he loved your mother very much. And your mother was about as gentle as you, my dear.”

“Stop that,” she muttered, turning for the dining room. Confounded dwarves had cleaned everything up, giving her nothing to occupy her hands as the wizard watched her with knowing eyes. “I know what you’re doing, and I don’t appreciate it.”

“Might I be included in this secret conversation we’re having?”

“Did you include me in bringing them here today?” She turned to see not an ounce of guilt in his ancient gaze. “What were you thinking, springing… _this_ on me?”

“Perhaps I thought you would welcome the surprise. You’ve complained enough about your dull life to warrant a bit of excitement every now and again.”

“Excitement is bringing fireworks to the Harvest Festival, or a skein of pretty silk from Gondor, or—I don’t know, showing up when you say you will for the first time in twenty years.” She waved a hand in the direction of the music floating through her home like mist. “ _Excitement_ is not dragging a small company of dwarves to my home and shoving me into a venture involving _dragons._ ”

“You love dragons,” he grumbled, sitting down heavily so as not to crane his neck under her low ceilings. “You begged me incessantly for stories about them when you were younger.”

“Yes, when I was younger,” she whispered frantically, “and those were _stories_. I’m sure the real ones can’t be banished by shouting at them long enough.”

He hummed in consideration. “You’d be surprised.”

Bella sagged into the seat opposite him, the weight of tonight’s thoughts dragging at her mind. “What on earth have you gotten me into, old man?”

“Nothing. Yet. Though I do hope you _will_ get into it.” His eyes sharpened in that infuriating way they tended to do whenever he seemed to read her mind. “It isn’t fear holding you back, is it?”

“Fear of dying?” She laughed, pushed her hair back where it had begun to escape her tight bun. “No, why should that hold me back?”

“You are not afraid to die, Bella Bright Eyes,” he grumbled. “You are afraid to _live_.”

“Stop calling me that.”

Gandalf’s eyes softened and he leaned forward. “It is your name. Why should I call you anything different?”

She chewed on her lower lip, her hands finding the key hanging around her neck, as they often did when she remembered her mother, when the memories hurt too keenly and the hill over her head seemed to bow and creak and threaten to collapse on top of her. 

His voice was a low rumble when he said, “Your mother did not want you to waste away in this house, letting the wider world pass you by, my dear. She did not want you to suffer alone.”

“My mother wanted many things, Gandalf,” she murmured. “Not one of which was to die with only me as her heir.” Her mother had spoke endlessly about adventure and romance and all kinds of lovely, exciting things, things which had filled Bella's childhood with fancy and longing for the world beyond the borders of her small, green country. But the truth remained that Belladonna Baggins, née Took, had chosen to live in a quiet, comfortable home, with a quiet, comfortable husband. She had chosen the Shire, and this simple life, over all the rest. Who was Bella to choose anything else?  Her throat tightened. “This house is all I have left of her and my father. I can’t wander off and get eaten by a dragon and leave it to any passing hobbit who takes a fancy.”

“The solution is simple, then.” Gandalf folded his hands over hers, eyes twinkling at her from his under bushy grey brows. “Do not allow yourself to be eaten.”

She didn’t laugh, but her mouth did twitch. “Why do you want me to join them? They seem perfectly capable of taking care of themselves.”

Gandalf didn’t speak for a long time, seeming to mull over his words. “I have lived a long time, Bella Baggins, and there are some things not easily explained to those with mortal lives.”

“You know better than to give me that cryptic nonsense.”

He chuckled. “I will say what I said before. That they will have need of your myriad talents before their quest is through. I daresay you are the pin around which this whole endeavor will turn.”

That did nothing to settle the nerves roiling through her stomach. He spoke as if she were some great hero, not an insignificant hobbit from the Shire with dreams too big for her skirts. She couldn’t fight, not really, and her skills were more suited to escaping busybody neighbors or rooting out mushrooms, not stealing into dragon hoards. 

And yet his words rang true, and the foolhardy voice in her head said, _Why not, then?_

“What did you tell them, Gandalf?” she murmured darkly. “Do they think I’m some master criminal?”

“He told us about as much as he told you, apparently,” a voice said from the hall. 

Gandalf looked over with a scowl, but Bella merely closed her eyes to search for patience.

This _king_ knew little enough of manners, to be interrupting any conversation he pleased. 

“I had a mind to speak to my burglar alone,” the king said, stepping into the dining room without an invitation. 

“Have I accepted, for you to be calling me _your_ burglar?” Bella asked, meeting his gaze with a sharp smile. “I hadn’t realized.”

His eyes narrowed, but he directed his words at Gandalf. “We leave at first light, wizard. I’d suggest you give your old bones time to rest.”

Gandalf’s indignation and generous mumbling as he edged out of the room might have been worth it, if the dwarf hadn’t been watching her with cold, appraising eyes. Ever since he’d heard Gandalf’s testimony to her skills, he’d tracked her like a bloodhound, as if she might trip and suddenly expose herself for the fraud she was. 

_Can’t expose anything I’m not hiding_ , she reasoned, rising and tipping her chin into the air. “I’m not supposed to sit in the presence of a king, right? I remember reading that somewhere, though I’m not sure if Dwarven custom holds to that of Man. I suppose I could curtsey, though I will not be kissing your rings.”

Unease flicked past his eyes as he shook his head. “You don’t have to show me any extravagant respect, Miss Baggins.”

“What a relief.” She leapt up to sit on the edge of the table, and crossed her arms. “Well, go ahead. I’m waiting.”

The king eyed her for a moment. “You seem reluctant to join us.”

“Oh, well-spotted.”

His expression tensed, a muscle twitching in his cheek as he reined in his annoyance. “Do you make it a habit of being rude to relative strangers?”

“I make it a habit of responding in kind, _your majesty_ ,” she made a show of waving her hand and dipping her head in mock deference, grinning as his jaw feathered. “And we _are_ relative strangers, so you’ll forgive me if I don’t jump headfirst into what sounds like a highly dangerous endeavor without a bit of thought.”

“So you are aware of the risks involved,” he said quickly, taking a small step toward her as if to punctuate his words. That, or to intimidate her with his broad shoulders and general bulk. “This is no happy jaunt through the wilds we are planning. Taking back my kingdom will be hard, and the road is long. It is not something one decides to join on a whim.”

Heat burned behind her ears. “Do I strike you as a whimsical woman, your majesty?”

“I found you picking flowers ten miles from your home today.”

“Because flowers are inherently whimsical? Or,” she said, painting her best smile across her lips, “is it simply a _woman_ picking flowers that you find ridiculous?”

“I would feel the same if you were a lad picking flowers. My point stands. This is not a quest for gentle hobbits who simply want to see the world and crawl back to their warm beds at night.”

She laughed, unable to keep her voice from rising in her anger. “For someone who continues to question my manners, you seem frightfully eager to do away with yours.”

“Manners will not protect you when a sword rests at your throat.”

“Then it’s a good thing I don’t _have_ any manners, isn’t it?”

His eyes flashed, but he barreled on, dropping his voice into a low rasp. “My Company seems impressed with you, for some reason, but pretty knife tricks and a domineering tongue will only get you so far, Miss Baggins.”

“Perhaps I should glower and growl more, since that’s worked so well for you.” She surged to her feet, the effect lessened somewhat by the fact that he was at least a head taller than her and closer than she’d like. “I don’t appreciate the insinuation that I can’t look after myself, your majesty. In fact I take great offense at it. I look forward to proving you wrong during our travels together.”

The words tumbled fast out of her mouth before she realized what she was saying, though they sounded right. 

The king seemed taken aback as well, for his expression froze. “You’re coming?”

“I am.” Her voice wavered slightly, but she controlled it and continued, “I agree with Gandalf. You dwarves are about as fleet of foot as my umbrella stand. You wouldn’t be able to sneak past a sleeping drunkard, let alone a dragon. It seems my services are highly necessary, for the right price.”

He drew himself up to look down his sharp nose at her. “And what price would that be?”

“I’m sure you have some kind of contract written up. I’ll let you know if the offer included in it is sufficient, as well as the necessary accommodations. Let it not be said that a Baggins gives herself away for a penny less than she’s worth.”

Something glinted in his eyes she couldn’t pin down. If it was annoyance or anger, she couldn’t tell. “Of course. You will be provided for.”

Bella scrambled for something to say in response, and settled on, “Right. Good.”  Before she could leave, however, he reached out with a quick hand to grab her arm. She yelped before she could stop herself, looking back with outrage, only to find a serious warning in his eyes. A deep gravity hung in their icy blue depths, and she found herself struggling to hold on to her anger. 

“I cannot guarantee your safety, Miss Baggins,” he murmured, his eyes holding hers with unerring sincerity. “Neither will I be responsible for your fate.”

She swallowed the hard lump rising in her throat, the stirrings of fear swirling with anticipation in her gut. In his voice rang something deep and certain, something almost…majestic. _Bothersome ass_.

“I understand,” she said, keeping her voice low for fear of it breaking. 

He searched her face, finding something to his satisfaction, and nodded. “Welcome to the Company, then.” He released her arm slowly and took a step back. “Balin will have your contract.”

As he turned, she saw a flash of silver beads in his hair, reminding her of the cloth tucked into her apron. “Wait,” she said, frowning, and pulled out the velvet handkerchief. “You dropped this in the woods today.”

He stared, one hand reaching for his breast pocket, before meeting her gaze. “Have you been holding this all night?” His voice was oddly strained.

“Yes, well, the arrival of a bunch of dwarves on my doorstep made me forget a few things.” 

He accepted the handkerchief with a nod, eyes straying up to her face every few seconds. A furrow appeared in his brow, and as their hands brushed, she had to fight not to react. His skin was rough, though that shouldn’t surprise her. From the state of his clothes and the few scraps she’d picked out from the conversation that night, he’d been traveling for a long time, dodging assassins, if the fine cuts on his chin and the slight bruise forming on his temple, not present earlier, were anything to go by.  _A king-in-exile_ , she mused, pulling her hand back as soon as she could. 

“Perhaps I judged you too hastily, Miss Baggins,” he murmured, a smirk tugging at his lips. “You must be a fine burglar indeed, to steal from me without my notice.”

Nerves swirled in her chest at the gleam in his eyes, both like, and very unlike, his nephews. “It’s not stealing if I just picked it up off the ground. Maybe you should take better care of your things.”

She edged passed him, but didn’t miss his soft chuckle as she entered the main room. A sudden flurry of movement greeted her as the entire Company settled themselves into casual positions, taking up the thread of a conversation that had not been happening moments before.  _More like a bunch of chittering hens than hardened warriors,_ she thought with a scowl.

Balin rose to his feet with only a slight discomfort in the set of his mouth, and proceeded to go over the details of her contract. 

Bella listened, letting her temper fade and her anticipation rise. She might have been spurred to agree in the face of the king’s disapproval, but she was excited about the prospect. Afraid, of course, but she’d never been naive of danger. Leaving Bag End was not something she would have chosen for herself, but hadn’t she been craving the open road earlier that day? She mulled over the options for keeping Bag End out of Lobelia’s hands, not letting her excitement grow too wild. It would be dangerous, and there was a good chance she’d never came back at all. 

But her heart rejoiced, little wings flapping inside her chest for the first time in a long, long while. She almost felt giddy, twitchy, and had to remind herself that she wasn’t some spring starling alight with youthful vigor. She was thoroughly middle-aged and should have figured out how to control her excitement by now, but it did no good. 

An adventure. A _real_ adventure, straight out of her mother’s and Gandalf’s old stories of heroes and great deeds. Her companions might not be stalwart knights or beautiful elven warriors, true. They were dwarves, and they smelled, and she was pretty sure none of them knew even a word of elvish, but there was an honesty to them, and an eagerness that fueled her own. 

As she tossed in her bed that night, listening to the sounds of snoring in her smial for the first time in years, she wondered what her mother would think of her running off into the wilds with a bunch of dwarves. Belladonna Baggins, née Took, would not have hesitated before throwing her daughter unceremoniously out of her home, with the promise that if she came back without any good stories, she’d disown her. 

Bella fingered the key on her chain, staring up at her ceiling with wide eyes, and hoped her mother, wherever she was, was watching in approval. 

The next morning went by so quickly, Bella hardly breathed before she was out of her door on the heels of a group of excited, talkative dwarves. 

Her pack felt too light, even after she’d shoved every last thing she could think of into it—her little knives, her mother’s notes on herbs and natural remedies, a few spare dresses and one pair of smart trousers, thinking with a grin how it would confuse the dwarves to no end in regard to her gender, her favorite journal of her father’s, and a small, but handy adventuring kit she’d put together over the years tripping to Bree and back, consisting of a needle and thread, cloth for bandages, rope, dried herbs to make a quick poultice, and a few pieces of flint. She’d donned her mother’s traveling coat, a lovely red velvet and leather thing, worn smooth and supple over a lifetime’s little jaunts around the Shire. She’d considered bringing her father’s lute, after hearing the dwarves play and sing together, as if it might help her feel more a part of the group. But it had a string missing, and she wouldn’t want to play anyhow. She hadn’t played since his death—why start again now?

The last thing she placed in the pocket of her mother’s coat, the thing which made the least amount of sense, but felt the most comforting, was an acorn. It had sat in her mother’s sewing box since her death and so she thought her mother wouldn’t mind. Belladonna Baggins had believed a number of strange and wonderful things, one of which being that there were little spirits who lived in the woods and enjoyed being given gifts of flowers or pretty stones, leaves with strange colors or bleached-white animal skulls. Bella had asked her mother one day, when they had been strolling back from visiting her aunt Donnamira over in Whitewell, flowers stuffed into both pockets, berry juice staining their lips, why she left things sitting on rocks or resting at the base of trees. “The little spirits don’t leave their homes much, Bright Eyes,” she had said, winking one warm amber eye down at her. “They like receiving gifts from those of us who wander far. It tells them of the wider world, and they love us for it.”

Bella thought the acorn had been collected from the leavings of a wide oak down near the party grounds, just a few miles from Bag End, though she couldn’t be sure. It had been the last her mother squirreled away for safe keeping before her father had caught his death, and she’d followed soon after. 

She had a thought to plant it somewhere near this Lonely Mountain, though part of her scolded the rest for such foolishness. She’d never seen any of these little spirits, nor did she rightly hold with her mother’s fanciful ideas of their enjoying random things scattered on their porches, but there was a comfort in the little acorn. If she couldn’t bring her mother with her, then perhaps she would bring her memory, and see if this kingdom on the other side of the world had need of a tree from her Shire. 

All in all, she thought she’d prepared well for whatever the wilds might throw at her, but when she saw the dwarves with their giant packs and various metallic instruments, she began to doubt. 

Doubt that only grew more pointed as she passed the scandalized eyes of her neighbors. She’d told the dwarves to go on when she left for Hamfast Gamgee’s house, feeling rather awkward for needing to tend to the necessary business of making sure Bag End was hers when she came back. 

Hamfast was younger than her, though he’d acted as much like a great aunt the past decade and change, looking after her gardens and chickens when she went off, peering over his hedges whenever strange folk called on her, usually Gandalf, though he never seemed to grow used to the wizard’s presence. It made her feel foolish, handing him her spare key and making him swear, under no circumstances, to let no member of her family into Bag End barring their imminent death, and in such a case, to watch them closely. 

Foolish, and guilty. But she shoved the latter aside. Gandalf was right. Her mother would have been more upset had she passed on this opportunity than leaving her home to the hands of a capable and trusted friend. 

As she spoke, reminding him of all her plants that needed watering, and furniture that needed draping, and how often her chickens needed feeding and attention, he seemed to be having a hard time focusing on her rather than something over her shoulder. 

“Hamfast, does my face offend you?” she finally said, nerves shortening her words. 

“What? No, Miss Baggins, I—well I worry, is all.” 

He swallowed, and she followed his gaze, only to find the two young dwarves, _princes_ , she corrected herself, leaning on the poor hobbit’s fence and twirling their knives. 

“You’re not being forced away, are you? I know there are a lot of them, but I’m sure—”

Bella ignored the indignant scoff from Kíli. “Hamfast, in all the years you’ve known me, have I ever done something I didn’t want to do?” 

He frowned deep, but kept quiet. 

“I have your word you won’t let my cousin into that house on pain of death?”

“Yes, Miss Baggins.” 

She smiled, gave his cheek a little pat, and turned around to join her waiting entourage. 

Hamfast meant well, she knew. He only worried after her because she had no one else, and because she paid him handsomely. But he was a kind man, kinder than most, and wouldn’t think less of her for going off into the wilds with a pack of dwarves, dwarvish _men_ , moreover. She had never cared about the societal obligations and expectations that made up the bedrock of hobbit life, but she knew about them. For a people as carefree and comfortable as hobbits, they prided themselves on order, and keeping the peace, more than anything. That meant, if not marriage, then something like it, and a general adherence to upholding the pleasant tranquility and pretty organization of Hobbiton.

Bella had never been one for peace and order, though she’d tried. Damn her, she'd tried.

“I did sign the contract, you know,” she called as she breezed past the two princelings, not bothering to wait for them to retrieve the weapons they’d been throwing back and forth to one another. “I haven’t gotten cold feet yet. You don’t need to follow me to make sure I won’t run back into my house and lock you all out.”

“Bet you thought about it, though,” Kíli said as he caught up to her. “Just to piss off Uncle.”

Bella pursed her lips as Fíli grinned. 

“We thought you might be sad, is all,” Kíli continued, snatching an apple from a tree in front of Miss Periwinkle Bolger’s home. 

“Sad?” she asked in surprise. “Why should I be sad?”

“You’re leaving home. It makes sense.” Fíli shrugged, knocking the apple from his brother’s hand and taking a bite. 

“I… No, I’m not sad.” She trailed off, nodding distractedly to a few hobbits who peered over their hedges at her foreign companions, ignoring the startled looks and muttered grievances. 

“You’d think they’d never seen a dwarf before,” Kíli said under his breath, winking at Fatty Arbuckle and causing the young hobbit’s face to scrunch up in displeasure. 

“Most haven’t,” Bella said in distraction. “In fact, most of the Shire think you’re an unkind, dangerous lot and would rather you stay out entirely.” She blinked, realizing how blunt she’d been. “I’m sorry. That was rude.”

Fíli and Kíli shared a startled glance. 

“What?”

Fíli looked like he was fighting the urge to keep silent. “You didn’t mind being rude last night.”

“Not that we minded you being rude, obviously,” Kíli grinned, “or else we wouldn’t be walking with you now, would we?”

“Yes, well,” she said, frowning as she forgot to wave hello to Yolanda Proudfoot as she passed her prized cabbages, having to turn around abruptly and shove her hand into the air, “I was in a foul mood last night.”

“Because our uncle scared you,” Kíli said.

“He did not _scare_ me,” she snapped. “He _does_ not scare me. None of you do.”

Fíli jogged ahead of her and walked backwards for a time, giving her a strange look. “Is there a reason you’re waving and grimacing at every hobbit you see? Is there some rule against not waving at people here?”

Bella yanked him sideways to stop him from falling into a hidden well. “Grimacing?”

“If you’re smiling, it looks painful.”

Kíli nodded in agreement, somehow having managed to produce another apple from one of her neighbors without her noticing. “You have a nice smile. Why’re you doing that thing with your teeth?”

The back of Bella’s ears went hot as she passed through the market in the center of Hobbiton, eyes flashing over the assembled crowd. Word had already gotten around. Lovely.

_What does it matter?_ she asked herself with a frown. All of them thought she was mad anyway. So what if they saw her running off with a bunch of prying dwarves? She shouldn’t care what they thought. “Is there a reason you’re so interested in my temperament?” 

Fíli slowed and walked beside her again, his blue eyes watching her closely. “Never met a hobbit before. Just curious.”

“I’m not the standard for all hobbits,” she said, adding darkly, “as I am sure any one of these lovely people could tell you.”

“Why are you making such a show of smiling and waving, then?” Kíli asked, some of the glint in his eyes fading. 

Bella took a breath, considering, as she wondered, truly, why, she put so much effort in. “Habit, I think,” she murmured, pulling her mother’s coat a bit tighter.

They let her be after that, though she noticed they made a show of walking closer to her every time they crossed paths with a hobbit. After a while, Bella gave up on being annoyed, and simply studied them.  Kíli was frenetic energy, laughing and winking and adding unnecessary flourishes to every action, no matter how mundane. This included walking, apparently, and had resulted in more than one smashed flower box.

Fíli seemed just as eager, but held himself back. She’d gathered he was the older brother, and the king’s heir. It was apparent in his demeanor that he was slower to laugh and smile, and not as quick to launch himself into the air at the sight of something interesting like an oversized puppy. There was a kindness to his eyes, a patience that seemed unforced. They might be the same color as his uncle’s, but there was no sadness there, or hardness. 

It took them an hour to join up with the rest of the group, and Bella had to admit it hadn’t been unpleasant. The princes were kind, if young, and even if she distrusted their over-interested gazes, she appreciated the effort. Six months was a long time to spend amongst strangers. And she was not so resigned to being an old maid that she didn’t appreciate a few young, attractive dwarves trying to make her smile.

She was just starting to relax again, out of the stares of Hobbiton and her immediate neighbors, when she caught sight of the Company gathered around a line of what looked to be huge furry mountains. 

“Ah, there you are. Finally,” the king said, looking his nephews over with a disapproving scowl. “I trust you’ve settled all your business, Miss Baggins?”

She swallowed the lump in her throat, tried to keep her voice smooth. “I have.” 

“Wonderful. Bombur, give our burglar a pony.”

“No,” she said quickly, drawing his curious glance. “I mean—no, thank you. I prefer walking.”

The king’s eyes flicked down, and his mouth twitched. “Our journey takes us over treacherous land not fit for delicate feet.”

She bristled. He’d as good as insulted her mother, calling her feet _delicate_. “My feet are about as delicate as your thick skull, _your majesty_ , and more than capable of walking on whatever treacherous terrain you can find.”

“Even so,” he said smoothly, holding out his hands for the reins of the pony these monsters were thinking of forcing on her, “you might injure yourself. Ponies are faster and safer.”

“I thought you didn’t care about my safety,” she muttered as he walked toward her, trying not to let her nerves show as the animal towered over her head.  _Monstrous beast._

“I assure you, this will be my only precaution I take with regard to your welfare.” His face was blank, but his eyes danced with mirth. “Do you need help getting up?”

Bella clenched her teeth so hard she heard a ringing in her ears, but took his hand. Again, she felt their roughness and battled her mind against the idea he was a king. Kings sat on thrones and made decrees, and were sometimes fat and lazy. This Oakenshield seemed entirely unfit for the part he should have played in her childhood stories.

All thought of the dwarf’s majesty flew out of her mind, however, when he proceeded to lift her by the waist and shove her unceremoniously onto the pony. 

Bella froze, hands held up by her chest and staring down from a height that sent stones into her stomach.  She wasn’t afraid of heights, in fact she loved them. Climbing trees was one of her favorite pastimes, but seated on the back of an animal who was three times her size and could easily stomp her into mush negated any love of being off the ground. 

“You’ll get used to them in no time,” the king said with a small, entirely too amused smile, patting her hand when she took the reins without a word. 

Bella dared not take her eyes off the animal between her legs, but she silently cursed every hair on the king under the dung-mound’s head.

“Uncle likes you,” Kíli said with a surprised smile as he rode up with his own pony. “He wasn’t nearly so nice when he shoved me onto my first pony.”

“If I remember right, you started crying,” Fíli mused as he sauntered past, “didn’t you, brother?”

Bella clutched tight to the reins as the princelings charged after one another, their ponies whinnying in protest. 

“Lovely to see you making friends, my dear Bella,” Gandalf said cheerily from his perch to her left. His horse was far larger than her own, making her feel even more like her eyes were about to bulge from her skull. 

“I’m going to cut up your hat and use it to reinforce my strawberry plants,” she muttered. 

He chuckled. “And your spirits are high. Marvelous.”

She yelped as the pony lurched into motion, and the dwarves around her did not bother to hide their laughter as the Company began their trek out of the Shire.


	5. Black-Eyed Bird

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Blackbird Song" by Lee DeWyze](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxV7C6NELqA&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-&index=5)

When rain came on the fourth day, Thorin welcomed it.

Their journey so far had gone smoothly, without so much as a wounded ego or fight breaking out amongst his company—so smoothly, in fact, that he’d begun to worry that some great misfortune was about to fall onto their heads. At the first sign of storm-clouds in the distance and at the grumbling disappointment of his Company, he grinned. _Better rain falling on my head than a snappish hobbit’s skirts._

Thorin had traveled enough over the years to know better than to trust an easy road. Little mishaps and inconveniences were a sign of Mahal’s favor, throwing obstacles in his path to harden his nerve and keep him alert. It was the quiet that hid true danger, and it was the quiet he watched with sharper eyes.

Erebor had been quiet the day Smaug came, the day the skies burned with fire and the screams of his people had reshaped his soul. 

He fell easily into travel with his companions, some new, some old. Dwalin and Balin he’d spent many years with after the fall of Erebor in the long trek to Ered Luin and the failed attempt to retake Moria, but the rest were less familiar, though he knew them well now. The three newest additions to his company, save the hobbit and wizard, were Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur, dwarrows from the Blue Mountains who hailed from miners and smiths, but were no less eager to pledge themselves to his service when he’d asked. Having spent the past few decades working as a blacksmith in the realms of Men, he’d come to love the work, and the people who gave their lives to it. He was glad to bring hard-working dwarrows to reclaim his home, for it would not be lords and kings who rebuilt his kingdom, but smiths and miners. All of them would need to take up the hammer and anvil before the end, even if their hands had grown more accustomed to the sword and axe.

It was hard to forget _why_ he journeyed, however, the point at the end of it all which hovered in the back of his mind. At the heart of the matter, he was king, and he could sit around the fire and laugh as much as he liked, but things were different now. With the death of his father and the decision to set out on this quest, he’d accepted the role given to him by fate and Mahal. He owed it to his men to be worthy of it. 

Thorin had also kept a watchful eye on the hobbit. She hadn’t complained apart from some grumbling about the ponies, and soon she began to suffer in silence. She didn’t jump like a startled chicken whenever her pony threw back its head anymore, in any case, to Thorin’s mild disappointment. In fact, she’d been unusually quiet. She spoke when spoken to, interjecting every now and again when Fíli and Kíli paused for breath on either side of her to make a smart comment about dwarven sensibilities, but otherwise kept her thoughts to herself. 

Why his nephews had taken a liking to her, he had no idea, but their affection seemed harmless enough. The hobbit clearly did not reciprocate any kind of intention on either of their behalves. After the first day, when he saw her accept their fumbles at flirting with a stoic, martyr’s grace, he’d forced himself not to worry. His nephews were old enough to learn rejection, if it came to it. 

No, what bothered him was the way she’d crawled into herself every time they so much as saw another hobbit. At first, he’d thought she was ashamed to be seen with them, and his temper had risen to such a pitch, he’d had to ride in silence for an hour to stop himself from questioning her outright. But after watching her perk up at Kíli’s attempts at flattery as they passed beside a market square, with a full thirty hobbits looking on like startled mice, he started to wonder if it wasn’t the Company who made her shrink, but her own people. 

The thought bothered him, though he had no mind to ask her about it. While the rest of the Company had so far gone without any fights, he seemed entirely unable to talk to her without provoking some kind of ire. She disliked him, clearly, and he wasn’t fond of her, but it rankled him to have a member of his Company he couldn’t understand. The wizard was at least purposefully obtuse, and he had no intention of trusting anything the old man said, helpful or not. But the hobbit… She made him uneasy, and he didn’t know why.

When they made camp on the sixth night out from the hobbit’s house, all of them damp and complaining about fire, he watched her pause and stare down at the ground with unfocused eyes before dumping her things and setting off into the woods. 

“Oi, Bella, be careful,” Kíli shouted, earning him a sour glare as she stopped and turned. 

“Yes, I’ll be very careful squatting behind a bush. My privates thank you for the reminder, Kíli.”

Thorin almost laughed at the speed of the retort.

Kíli’s expression faltered, but he rallied at once. “I only meant for the orcs. Never know when one might jump out and steal away a fair hobbit lass—”

“You think that’s funny, do you?” Thorin said before he could stop himself, making the camp freeze and turn to him. Anger flashed like lightning in his mind. What in Mahal’s name had possessed the boy to say something so foul?

Kíli’s expression fell and he looked down. 

“He didn’t mean anything, uncle,” Fíli muttered, frowning. “Just joking.”

“If you’d ever met an orc, you would not joke.” His eyes moved to the hobbit, who was watching him curiously. “Especially not about something like that.” His jaw clenched, old wounds festering in memory of that long-ago battle. “I’ll take first watch,” he muttered, stalking off to an outcropping of rock overlooking the countryside. 

As he left, he heard Balin say, “Don’t mind your uncle, lads. He has more reason than most to hate orcs.”

He breathed deep to settle his anger, reminding himself that they were only children. He was not their father, and it was not his job to teach them of the world. But it was hard not to feel responsible every time they showed their true inexperience. 

After their father’s death, he’d as good as raised them with Dís. For thirty years he’d stayed in Ered Luin, played the dutiful prince to his people, helped his sister still grieving for the loss of her fated-love and husband, and been glad to do it.

But as the years dragged on and he saw his people wane in a home that was not theirs, he grew restless, and began to feel the liar for pretending to accept less than what they were owed. And so he’d left, first to find his father, and then to grieve that failure by taking work where he could with the only skill he had left to him—that of forging metal and making tools of war. He had pounded his anger and loss into steel, until he could think of his people again without shame. By the time he’d returned, Fíli and Kíli had come of age, barely, and he had once again felt the dull ache of failure. He had not been there to see them mature, so consumed with his own inadequacy. He had failed them, just as surely as he had failed Dís, and Frerin. 

“Not again,” he murmured, staring out over the quiet green hills painted navy in the moonlight. He would not fail again. 

“Talking to yourself, are you?” Dwalin grunted as he stepped up beside Thorin, settling into the rock. “Maybe you have been on your own too long.”

Thorin frowned. “Have you been gossiping about me?” 

“Balin worries.”

“Some things never change,” he muttered. He listened to the sound of the old dwarf’s pontificating drift over the settling of camp, knowing what he said without needing to hear the words. “I wish he’d stop telling that story.”

“It’s a good story,” Dwalin said gruffly. “No reason not to tell it.”

“It’s overly romantic.” 

Dwalin chuckled. “Aye, nothing like blood and sweat and death to get one’s heart in the mood for romance.”

Thorin kept his gaze forward, images of a battlefield of stone and ash flashing in his mind, the howling, bestial shriek of the Pale Orc as it crawled back into its dank hole to die of its wounds. 

“You going tell me who gave you those shiners last week?”

He shifted, ready for the question, but not wanting to answer. Dwalin would worry, as much the mother hen as his older brother, even if his feathers were made of sharper steel and his concern was far less subtle. “Just a few mercenaries. It wasn’t a problem.”

“Well, I figured that much.” Dwalin straightened, looked Thorin full on. “How long’s that been going on?”

“About a year.”

Dwalin grumbled, smoothing a hand over his bare skull in frustration. “Daft fool. You should have told me.”

“I would have, if it had been a problem.” Thorin smirked at his friend. “A poor king I’d make if I couldn’t handle a few humans looking for an easy ransom.”

“That’s not the point and you know it.” Dwalin ground his teeth, glaring. “You shouldn’t have to handle it on your own. I could have been there to help. Mahal knows why you took your sweet time coming back to Ered Luin, but I would have dropped things sooner if you’d just said something.”

Thorin held his gaze, discomfort turning his stomach. He’d always found Dwalin to be a difficult man to lie to. It wasn’t that he was clever or insightful, though he was, more than he let on, or that he challenged Thorin, because he hadn’t over their long lifetimes together, not in Erebor, and not since. 

It was his acceptance—constant, unwavering, no matter what Thorin did or said, or didn’t say, in most cases. For a hundred and ninety-five years, Dwalin had stood at his side, his right hand, his stalwart, unflinching support through it all. He questioned, but never pressed, he offered, but never assumed. He was his brother, more than Frerin had ever been, taken from him as early as he had been, though it hurt Thorin to admit it even to himself. 

He’d never asked, but he’d known Dwalin had been there with his nephews and with Dís when he returned to Ered Luin with his plan at last to set out for the Lonely Mountain. He could only guess what role Dwalin had fulfilled in his absence, from the bond clear between his nephews and his old friend, the fourth clasp in Fíli’s hair not made by his mother, father, or Thorin. 

“You’re right,” he finally said, swallowing dark thoughts as he clapped Dwalin on the shoulder. “I should have told you. I’m sorry, _akrâgkharm_.”

Dwalin narrowed his eyes, though his expression softened at the endearment. “I know it’s hard, traveling with kin again, but you don’t have to throw up a wall.” He scowled when Thorin tried to protest. “Don’t start with that. I know exactly what you’ve been doing.”

Thorin inclined his head, unable to curb his smile. “And people say you’re only muscle.”

“Who says?” Dwalin asked without bite. “I’ll shove my fist up their nose.”

They stood in silence for a while, listening to the continued sounds of the Company settling in for the night. The mists of the evening curled up over the rock at their feet, and Thorin lost himself in its slow undulation. In the dark, the gentle green country looked wilder, less soft. He could imagine mountains in the east, hard rocks breaking the feeble swell of the hills and glens. It was comforting. 

“It’s a good group, you know,” Dwalin said.

Thorin nodded. 

“Don’t trust the wizard farther than I can punt him.”

He chuckled. “Careful. Old Greybeard might have spies listening to us.”

Dwalin frowned, casting a sharp eye over his shoulder and then up into the sky. “You think?”

“I know he’s telling the truth about wanting to see us safely to Erebor,” Thorin murmured, fighting the urge to look over his own shoulder. “What I don’t know is why.”

Dwalin hummed in assent. “What’s bothering me is his bringing that halfling.”

Thorin looked at him, relieved to hear his own fears echoed. “I thought you liked her.” Indeed, Dwalin had taken to ribbing the halfling as much as he could. His friend was not the type to speak if he didn’t have to, so the fact that he enjoyed annoying the hobbit spoke volumes. 

“She’s all right.” Dwalin frowned, though there was a begrudging amusement in his eyes. “Reminds me of Dís, actually.”

Thorin’s relief was short-lived as his mind slammed to a halt. _Dís?_ His sister was sharp, noble, and entirely too proud, more prone to cutting you with a look than deigning to speak and lose face. The hobbit might have grown solemn over the past week, but it would be a long stretch to call her _noble_.

“Don’t see it?”

Thorin frowned deeply. “Not at all.” Maybe when Dís was younger, but even then she’d been more like a prowling cat than an irate chicken. No. He didn’t see the resemblance. And the idea unnerved him.

Dwalin shrugged. “Anyway. I don’t think she’s some spy for the wizard, but I’m not sure why she’s here. I don’t trust her, is all.”

“Neither do I,” Thorin murmured, trying to stop himself from comparing the hobbit to his sister. _Mahal scour my mind._ “We’ll just have to keep an eye on her.”

“Aye.” He clapped a hand on Thorin’s shoulder, jerked his head back to the now flickering firelight. “I can take watch, if you want. I think my brother’s had his fill of war stories for the evening.”

Thorin shook his head. “I need some time to think.”

Dwalin looked him over with a sharp eye, but nodded, and left without another word. 

He watched the countryside for a time, trying to dislodge the strange tension in his chest.

Thoughts of his sister eventually won out, and he took out the piece of navy cloth on which his heraldry was stitched in silverthread. Dís had insisted he take it with him when he departed from Ered Luin. “Something to remind you of why you’re fighting,” she’d said, deep brown eyes, Kíli’s eyes, clear and steady. “And what you have waiting for you, _nadad_.” 

She had always been stronger, fiercer. After Erebor, and Azanulbizar, he’d often wondered what a king she might have made, how much better she might have been. Even after losing her husband, her _âzyungel_ , she’d endured, as timeless and steadfast as the stone. 

He hadn’t even noticed the cloth was gone the day he met the hobbit, too wrapped up in thoughts of assassins and the impending meeting with his Company. He smoothed his thumb over the seven stars of Durin, circling the last with a furrowed brow. It was an old legend of his people, that Durin the Deathless would be reborn to shepherd the dwarrow-clans throughout the ages. Seven times would he walk this earth, before the final dwarrow-death, and the great exodus to Mahal’s halls where they would wait to rebuild the world after the Last Battle. 

It had never been more than a story to Thorin, a favorite of his mother’s, who’d reminded him of his heritage when he grew angry at the courtly practice and endless repetitions of royal etiquette in his earliest years, when he still lived under the Lonely Mountain. 

He hadn’t seen her die, but he’d heard of her bravery, holding a door to allow Frerin, Balin, and his younger cousins to flee through the burning halls while the dragon destroyed all other exits. Balin had given him this scrap of cloth when it was all over, the only piece of her that survived outside of his memory. 

And the only reason he still had it came down to a hobbit’s keen eye. 

His watch passed slowly, mired in thoughts both sluggish and deep, and when he finally came to sleep that night, he dreamed of an orc’s piercing shriek and dragon fire. 

Thorin awoke in an ill mood, jaw clenched and back aching from the tension of keeping himself taut. It had become second nature to force his body into stillness, even while his mind screamed and thrashed. Too many nights he’d awoken to find Dís or Dwalin standing over his bed, shaking him awake from nightmares of death and dragon fire. Over the years, he’d settled into a new kind of night terror—one that was manageable, if paralyzing, and allowed him to keep up the appearance that he had himself under control.

Stretching and nodding to Nori on watch, he set off to splash cold water on his face from the small stream they’d camped beside. It was a chilly morning, and he breathed deep, fog ghosting from his mouth to expel the tension in his limbs. The cold helped him settle his thoughts, shook off the last dregs of his nightmare. 

“Before you say something smart—” 

He jumped, looked around for the familiar voice, only to find the hobbit perched on a tree above his head, wearing a wide grin and an arched brow. 

“I found a sturdier branch this time, so there will be no danger of me falling on you. And I was here first, so I won’t have any jokes about me spying,” she continued, sitting and letting her feet dangle in front of his face. 

He stepped back, not wanting to catch an errant view of anything up her skirts. Why she had insisted on bringing dresses on their quest, he had no idea. He also had no intention of asking her, even if it seemed to him both stupid and frivolous. 

He found his voice, and muttered, “Am I allowed to say anything?” 

“ ‘Good morning’ is a generally acceptable form of address after sunrise.” She leaned over the branch, so far it made Thorin’s stomach flip, and peered into the east. “And it appears to be past sunrise, so I’d go with that.”

“Is there a reason you’re so often found in trees?” he said to distract himself from the sudden alarm at seeing her move so casually nearly fifteen feet off the ground. He was not, as a rule, afraid of heights, but there was something willfully reckless about climbing trees which made him very happy his feet were placed firmly on the ground. Better stone and dirt than fragile wood to catch him should he fall.

She settled down again, swinging her bare feet in the air. “Perhaps I’ve been trying to think of ways to annoy you, and figured this might drum up bad memories.”

He stared at the satisfied smirk pulling on her lips. She’d hardly spoken to him unless prompted the past few days. He’d forgotten how lovely her eyes were when she smiled. 

_Enough of that._

“You’ll have to try harder than that, Miss Baggins.” 

“Challenge accepted.”

He blinked, grinning at her bravado despite himself. “Truly, is there a reason for the morning climb?”

She picked up an apple from her lap and threw it down to him. He caught it easily enough, and swallowed a joke about producing more fruit from between her legs. It was early in the morning. He could afford to try at pleasantness. 

“I’ve traveled this way many a time. You’ll find no sweeter apples than Fran Briar’s orchards.” She jerked her head behind her, indicating a small field of trees set beside a house painted a garish shade of yellow. “I fancied a walk.”

He looked at the apple and scowled. “You should not wander from camp.”

“I left a note,” she said sourly, biting into another apple. How many did she have tucked up in her skirts? “And I know these hills better than anyone, I’d wager. Once we’re out of the Shire, I’ll confine myself to camp.”

“I would prefer you to start now,” he said firmly.

He’d spent enough time traveling and camping in the wild that it didn’t matter if ninety-nine days out of a hundred were uneventful—it was the one which caught a dwarf unaware which took his life. Though he cared little enough for her safety, she was under his command in the technical sense. He would not allow her to die if he could help it, especially not swallowed whole by a bear while wandering in the fields picking fruit. 

“But you can leave camp because you’re a king?” She took another large bite of her apple and said around her chewing, “That doesn’t rightly seem fair to me.”

“Walking to a river close by is not the same as strolling an hour into—” He stopped, frowned. “How did you get past Nori?”

She simply blinked innocently at him, again that infuriating grin stretching her lips.

Nori had excellent senses. It was one of the reasons Thorin had asked him to join, along with his talent for finding out information other people wanted to keep hidden. The dwarf had never lived an entirely respectable life, treading a careful line between criminal and opportunist.

If the hobbit had snuck past him, that was rare indeed. Or perhaps she’d simply been lucky. 

“I wanted to watch the sunrise,” she said with a roll of her eyes, getting to her feet and gathering up her skirt with one hand to hold the wealth of apples in her lap. “My sincerest apologies for causing you such concern.”

“You didn’t—” He looked pointedly away as her underskirts showed. Hobbit propriety was low on his list of things to learn, and so he’d rather not risk it. “I didn’t come looking for you.”

He hadn’t even realized she was gone, come to think of it. 

She hummed in thought and swung down from the tree, landing rather gracefully in front of him without dropping a single apple. “If you need something to help you sleep, chamomile tea will settle your nerves.”

Thorin looked at her sharply. “I’ll thank you not to pry into my personal affairs.”

The hobbit’s brow raised, though her eyes didn’t flash with anger, as he’d expected. Instead she studied him, finishing off her apple with a casual air. It made him feel as if he were caught in the gaze of a hawk. 

“You’re not the only one who has trouble sleeping,” she said gently, taking a few steps toward him. She gave him a soft, kind look. “I can understand keeping it to yourself—goodness knows, you don’t seem like the sharing type—but if you ever decide you’re tired of waking up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat, I know a few things which might help.”

The offer took him by surprise. She’d struck him as a petty, snappish thing, domineering and so used to her own company that she’d forgotten how to interact with others if she wasn’t getting her way. 

There was sympathy in her black eyes, and while he usually hated the implication that anyone felt sorry for him, it didn’t feel so feeble coming from her. 

“What would a hobbit have in the way of nightmares to know how to combat them?”

She blinked, affront flashing in her eyes. “Plenty. Though I’m sure my concerns are trivial compared to yours.”

“I didn’t mean—”

She waved him off, walking around him toward camp. She stopped, and though she didn’t turn, he saw the tight set of her shoulders and felt the tension in her voice. “I’ve lived and lost enough to understand pain, your majesty. Kings don’t hold the corner on bad memories.”

Thorin watched her go, fingering the apple in his hand gently, as if it might break apart with too much force. His question hovered in his mind as he followed the noises of alarm, and then happy surprise as she reentered camp and started distributing her apples. 

He had a hard time keeping his eyes off her the rest of the day, wondering what on earth she could have experienced to speak with such authority. She could have been a brilliant liar, but he detected no artifice in her voice. It was simply that same void of anger and obstinance, the same empty expression she’d worn in her dining room that night when she listened to them speak of the quest, which had made her seem far older than she appeared. 

He was still watching her when they stopped for camp, and so he saw her pony’s saddle slip precariously to the side as she dismounted. He moved quickly—too quickly, he would think later—and caught her up before she dumped herself unceremoniously onto the ground. 

She reacted with as much grace as he’d expected, squirming at once with an imperious, “Put me down, you presumptuous boulder!” She nearly caught his face with her elbow before he jerked out of the way.

He grimaced, and set her down at once. “You are welcome.”

“I would have been fine.” She smoothed down her coat and skirts, turning her face away, but not before he caught a brilliant red blush on her cheeks. 

“Bella, you all right?” Fíli called over the heads of the rest of the Company, all watching them with curious expressions.

She muttered furiously, “Bother and confusticate every single one of you—”

“Miss Baggins is fine.” Thorin fought a smile as he turned to her saddle, easing a hand down her pony’s snout to calm the animal. “Get to your duties. You don’t want to pitch your tents in the dark.”

“I’m not delicate, you know,” she said sourly, crossing her arms over her chest. “I won’t break if I fall.”

“I remember.” He arched his brow as he went about tightening the straps of her saddle. “Perhaps I wanted to save the ground your indelicacy.”

“The ground would be so lucky.” She fidgeted out of the corner of his eye. “What are you doing?”

“I’m showing you how to properly tighten your saddle so I won’t need to keep an eye on you.”

“Oh, is _that_ why you’ve been staring?” she said peevishly. “Here I thought I had something on my face.”

Embarrassment washed through him, but he was saved the hassle of controlling his expression when he caught sight of a multi-colored bundle tucked into the pocket of her saddle. “More flower picking?” he asked, pulled out a few red and yellow blossoms.

“Hello,” she said loudly, smacking his hands away, “these are my things. You’re not my king, and so you don’t get to put your bulky sausage fingers on anything you like.”

He gave her an odd look. _Sausage fingers?_ “You enjoy collecting these, then?” He fingered the one still in his hand, noticing then that it was twined around others, with a simple, if elegant, braiding of the stems and leaves. “This is fine work.” It was, surprisingly so, though he hadn't meant to let the compliment slip out.

She froze and looked up at him with sharp eyes, as if waiting for some insult. “I—sort of, yes.” She held out her hand, and he gave the flowers back. “They’re… It’s something my mother used to do.”

He waited, a still awareness settling over him at the sudden drop in her voice. 

“She thought there were spirits that lived in the Shire that liked presents," she said quickly, "flowers being among their favorite.”

“Your daffodils.”

Her eyes narrowed, but she nodded. 

“You were collecting them for these spirits?”

“And for me.” She slipped the flowers back into her saddle and said brusquely, “I can see what you meant about the tightness of the straps. I’ll make sure to keep an eye out for that in the future.”

It took him a moment, but he inclined his head. “Do. It’s uncomfortable for your pony as well, and should she need to run, you would both be at risk of injury.”

She opened her mouth, ire flashing in her eyes, but she seemed to think better of whatever she was about to say. “Right. Thank you.”

Thorin studied her face, feeling the absolute ass. It wasn’t his fault, of course. He hadn’t known he’d smashed flowers that were meant as offerings to spirits of the Shire. He hadn’t even known hobbits held to any faith or superstitions, thinking they worshipped food and drink as much as any gods. 

“Was there anything else you wanted to correct about my person,” she snapped, her usual sharp tone creeping back into her voice, “or can I be allowed to set up my tent in peace, your majesty?”

He scowled and moved away, trying to ignore the tingling discomfort rising in the back of his mind. He returned to his own pony and began settling in for the night. 

There was something so confusingly gentle about the idea that she collected flowers to give to spirits in her mother’s name. Her mother who was dead, presumably. Bella Baggins did not strike him as the pious sort. But he knew almost nothing about her. He shouldn't presume. 

Thorin stared into the fire as he listened to the Company trade stories, feeling the hobbit’s gaze trained on him. He was not an inquisitive man by nature, but he couldn’t shake the curiosity as he lay in his bedroll that night. The picture in his mind’s eye of her warped and shifted, growing more shadowed, less clear, as if with every new facet he saw, he only had more questions. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Khuzdul:  
>  _akrâgkharm_ \- male that is no direct relation by blood, yet is regarded by one as a brother, holding him in high honor and offering an unshakable sense of loyalty, friendship and profound platonic love  
>  _nadad_ \- brother  
>  _âzyungel_ \- heart of hearts, fated-love
> 
> I will be putting in translations for all the khuzdul I use, which is all sourced from [The Dwarrow Scholar](https://dwarrowscholar.wordpress.com/) (this guy is INSANE and if you have any interest in conlangs or dwarves, go check it out, his work is soo cool) and changed slightly to fit the context in which I'm using them for this story. For example, _akrâgkharm_ here is something that a man offers a close friend, like a proposal, but for bros. There's a ceremony and everything. This will be explained more later, so I'll leave it at that for now. _Âzyungel_ , I am pretty sure, is a fanon thing (as I haven't seen any mention of it in the lore), so I'm playing fast and loose with the whole fate thing. Again, I will explain more what I mean by it later, when it makes sense for the story. If I ever leave off a translation, because my brain is mush, feel free to let me know!
> 
> I think I might slow the updates a bit now that I've gotten five chapters up, so we might go to a chapter every few days now instead of every day. Thank you so much to the people commenting. You guys are lovely <3


	6. Ain't It Lonely

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Wild Indifference" by Joan Shelley](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEXAAS4mRqQ&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-&index=6)

Bella watched Bree appear on the horizon as she crested the hill with her pony, Myrtle, looking more like a scattering of black-smudged twigs in the distance than a village. She’d visited a few times a year over the past decade since her mother died, but had never gone farther that the little crumbled wall at the edge of the village. She’d felt too small, and silly, and had convinced herself it was farther outside the Shire than any hobbit could, or should, dream of going. 

Now, knowing it was only the first stop in what would be the longest and most dangerous journey of her life, she was gripped by a sudden and wild desire to sprint straight through the leaning buildings and gangly humans before she lost her nerve. 

The trip so far had felt no different than any other. The additional companions might have made for some adjustments, and she still needed some time to get used to her pony, but the land was familiar, the road was safe. But beyond that little black smudge was the whole world, and she hadn’t understood yet what that would mean. Staring at it now made her feel like she had when listening to the dwarves sing beside her fireplace, as if that doorway which had opened was beckoning her forward.

“You said you’d been here before, Bella?” Bofur asked, stopping his pony beside hers. 

“A fair few times.”

“Then perhaps your famed knowledge will finally be put to the test, burglar,” Thorin called from the front of the line of ponies, not bothering to look back at her as he trod on.

Bella glared at the back of his head, grateful for something to distract her from her nerves. “Bofur, what is the most important thing a dwarf can stand to lose without wanting to kill the person who took it?”

Bofur chuckled. “Oh, no, you’re not getting that out of me, Miss Bella. Not without a few more barrels of ale.”

“That can be arranged,” she said with a smile, urging Myrtle down into the shallow valley. 

Bree was a dirty, crowded place, with towering, slanted buildings and people just the same. She hadn’t spent much time in the village proper, only going in and out to restock supplies, listen to stories in the only tavern which accommodated hobbits. She’d met a few traveling merchants willing to give her news of the outside world, and a few humans who’d thought to take advantage of someone they thought was a gentle hobbit lass alone and afraid, to their detriment. It was after the first such encounter she’d started carrying knives with her, and using her father’s potato peeler for bloodier purpose. 

The Company split up, planning to meet back at the Inn of the Prancing Pony later that night. Bella had a few things she wanted to buy that she’d forgotten, more thread for mending torn clothes, some beeswax for chapped lips, another pair of gloves, and it would be nice to have some privacy for once.

But only a few minutes into her shopping, she noticed she had a tail, and it was not her usual shadows of Kíli and Fíli. She’d grown used to the young princes, had even started to enjoy their company on occasion, but this shadow was a fair bit taller and heavier on his feet. 

She let Dwalin follow her for over an hour finishing up her errands before she stopped at a street-side vendor for lunch and called, “Are you hungry, Master Dwalin? Only I’d rather you say now than stare at my food for the next ten minutes.”

She grinned over her shoulder to find him hovering behind a horse hitch, a truly ridiculous sight, as he had two axes strapped to his back and his bald, tattooed head shined in the midday sun. 

He straightened up and scowled. “How long did you know I was there?” he grunted, nodding in gratitude when she handed him a stick of charred, spiced rabbit. 

“I heard you curse about five minutes after I left the rest. You have a very distinctive voice.”

He grumbled, but followed her over to a quiet spot near a well, where she hopped up onto a little wall and ate her lunch. 

“Did you need something,” she asked with a smile, “or have you taken a shine to me?”

He laughed at once, and her vanity bristled just a bit. “Sorry, lass, I’ll not throw my axe into the ring. Better to let the little princes work it out amongst themselves.”

“They aren’t subtle, are they?” she mused, biting into her food. It was rather tough, but it tasted divine. She’d need to pick up some spices before they left. Dwarven cuisine was filling, but its seasoning consisted mostly of salt and fat, and left little for the palette to enjoy. 

“This is the first time they’ve been away from their mother,” Dwalin said with a thin smile. “I imagine they’re just overeager.”

She noted the fondness in his eyes and the almost gentle quality of his voice, if a stone’s rasp could sound gentle. “They’re not actually thinking I’ll reciprocate, right? It’s just for fun?” She’d begun to worry about this the past few days. Beyond the enjoyment of their flattery, she had absolutely no intention of stringing anyone along on this venture of theirs. And she didn’t fancy dealing with their tyrant of an uncle, in any case.

Dwalin arched his brow. “Got something against the dwarrows courting you? Fine lads, the pair of them.”

She froze with her skewer between her teeth, trying to figure out if he was playing with her or not. “I’m sure they are. However, I have zero interest in forming any kind of romantic attachment to anyone on this quest. No offense meant to the princes or your race at large.”

He grunted and continued eating, but approval gleamed in his eyes. 

_Damn dwarf_ , she thought with a scowl. 

“They grew up with a domineering mother. You probably feel familiar to them.”

She choked on her food.

“Dwarrows form attachments to the women in their lives early on. They like that feminine influence—you all right, lass?” He hit her on the back a few times as she coughed, blinking back tears as she recovered from trying to breathe in bits of rabbit.

“You’re joking,” she managed, glaring. 

He winked, which nearly made her choke again. 

Instead, she laughed, entirely taken aback by the shift in his demeanor. He’d said barely two words to her since leaving Bag End, and now he was teasing her as if they’d been lifelong friends. “I’m not going to be very happy if someone starts asking me for bedtime stories.”

“Just be glad they’re out of their nappies.” Bella’s deep scowl only made Dwalin laugh again.“I’m joking lass. They like a challenge, and you’re a right bit sharper than we were expecting you to be.”

“And what were you expecting?” she asked, not sure if she wanted to know the answer.

Dwalin’s eyes grew searching, an intelligence shining in his gaze she hadn’t seen before. “Not you.”

She went back to eating, trying not to let her curiosity get the better of her. Of course she had expected them to talk about her—any stranger in a group of men who’d known each other for a long time would spark speculation. Instead, she asked, “Why were you following me?”

“Wanted to make sure you weren’t up to anything.”

Her brow lifted. “Like what?”

He sucked the last scraps of meat from his skewer. “Selling secrets, meeting with anyone shady.” He shrugged, eyed her skewer, which still had a few chunks of rabbit left. “You going to finish that?”

She pulled her hand away, scowling. “Yes. And what secrets would I sell to anyone? That you’re all going on an extended journey to kill a dragon? I have a feeling it isn’t Bofur’s intense love of wine.”

His eyes widened and cast sharply over the busy square. “Keep your voice down.”

She chewed on a few bites, a question that had been forming in her mind over the past week coming to a head. “Are there people who would interfere with your quest?”

Dwalin tensed, but said nothing. 

“People who might hire assassins to go after your king?” she asked innocently, finishing off her skewer as his eyes snapped back to her.

“How would you know about that?” he asked in a low, rumbling tone.

“He thought I was an assassin when we met. Pulled a sword on me and everything. Also,” she added, taking his skewer and throwing them both onto a pile of discarded tinder, “he had a few scrapes on him when showed up at my house that weren’t present when we met earlier in the day.”

“Why haven’t you brought this up?”

“No one else mentioned it, and I saw you two exchange furtive looks when he first arrived.” She shrugged. “I figured it wasn’t something I _should_ bring up.”

Dwalin continued to study her as she slid off the wall. 

“I realize I’m new, and not exactly wanted. But you have my word that I won’t sell you out.” She smiled. “And besides, I’m invested. Almost literally. You lot cost me quite a lot of food. I’ll need my share of your treasure if I’m to board myself when I return to Bag End.”

Dwalin continued to eye her suspiciously, but it seemed less barbed now, as if she’d passed some kind of test. Also, she had a feeling he eyed everyone with suspicion if they were not a direct relation to a certain king. She wondered what lives these dwarves must have led to be so distrusting of people, especially after they’d accepted her food and hospitality. 

“Also, I had a thought,” Bella started as they stepped onto the street again. “I realize you’re all capable of washing yourselves, but—”

Her words died as she saw a pair of hobbits coming down the road, directly toward her. 

Heart leaping up into her throat, she ducked behind Dwalin. The dwarf, to his credit, only grunted in surprise, but she wasn’t quick enough to disappear from sight before—

“Bella Baggins?” one of the hobbits called, hurrying through the street and nearly getting bowled over by a few irate humans. “Cousin Bella, is that you?”

Bella closed her eyes and straightened. She pulled on her most proper smile, and tried not to look like she was screaming on the inside. She also ignored the dwarf’s questioning frown as she stepped around him. “Hello, Prisca.” She swallowed her mortification and looked to the other hobbit following after, not nearly as eager, nor happy to see her. “Wil.”

“Oh, cousin, it’s so good…” Prisca trailed off, coming to a comic halt in the road as she stared with wide eyes at the dwarf behind Bella. She let out a little squeak before she recovered. “I—oh my, I see the rumors are true.”

Bella’s chest burned. _Honestly, how obtuse can she be?_ Her cousin had always been thoroughly dull, every bit the soft, gentle hobbit lady expected of the Baggins name, without any of the cleverness. “Prisca, this is my friend, Dwalin,” she said before Prisca could further embarrass herself. “Dwalin, my cousin Prisca Baggins. Or, I should say Prisca Bolger, and her husband Wilibald.”

Dwalin narrowed his eyes, and gave no more greeting than a rough grunt which somehow made his axes grind together. 

Both Wil and Prisca jumped. 

Bella hid her smile with a clearing of her throat. “What are you two doing in Bree? This is a bit far for you.” She tried not to look at Wil, but she couldn’t help herself. The man looked thoroughly uncomfortable, and not at all pleased by her companion.

Not that he had any right to be pleased or displeased by anything she did. Damn him.

“We were visiting Willy’s sister in Bucklebury when news went around that you’d—” She looked up in fear at Dwalin, and lowered her voice to a whisper as she sidled closer. “That you’d been _stolen_ by a pack of dwarves.”

“Oh, is that all,” she sighed as Dwalin threw his head back in laughter. “And you thought you’d what, steal me back? You and _Willy?”_

“We had to figure out whether it was true or not,” Wil whispered, eyes going wide with concern that was no longer his to hold in regard to her business. _Interfering busybody_ , she thought in frustration.

“Whatever Miss Baggins has told you, Master Hobbit,” a voice said over her shoulder, a voice that belonged to the only person who could possibly make this situation worse, “it’s a lie.”

Bella did not look up at Thorin, nor did she acknowledge his presence, and she did her best not to bristle as he stepped up close behind her.

“They think we stole her,” Dwalin said with another bark of laughter.

“Ah,” Thorin said, amusement in his voice, “because Miss Baggins is worth the effort, presumably.”

She could imagine the little smirk on the king’s mouth, but she kept her composure as Wil had the audacity to reach for her arm. She smacked his hand away, and muttered, “Don’t you even think about touching me, Wilibald Bolger. Or would you like me to remind you of the last time you attempted to manhandle me in public?”

She felt the dwarves tense behind her, heard the rasp of metal from a sheath, and was about to turn around in exasperation, when her cousin fainted. 

“Honestly,” she groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose as a fierce pain erupted behind her eyes. “This is ridiculous. I’m fine.”

Wil’s face had gone pale as a sheet, and he seemed frozen in place, though he mustered the courage to mutter, “Bella, please. This has gone too far. I know you fancy yourself bigger and better than the Shire, but running off—”

“Right,” she snapped, ears burning, anger rising so fast she had to force herself not to scream in the middle of the street, “for the last time—I’m fine. I was fine before, I’m fine now. But I realize you won’t listen to me. So.” She reached into her purse and drew out two coins to chuck at his face. 

He stumbled back, but managed not to fall in the mud next to his wife. 

“There’s some money for you to write up fliers and post them all around the Shire. ‘Bella Baggins has taken leave of her wits at last and jaunted off into the woods with a bunch of dwarves.’ Write whatever you damn well please, it makes no difference to me. I’m off. I don’t know when I’m coming back. And if anyone else can muster up the courage to come looking for me, I will be happy to send them back to Hobbiton with a few less fingers.” She scowled. “And pick up your wife before she chokes on the mud.” She turned around, forgetting that there were two dwarves standing directly behind her, and nearly ran straight into Thorin’s chest. “Confuscated—,” she muttered. “ _Move_ , you overgrown ram.”

He did so at once, to her surprise.

She felt their eyes on her as she stomped down the street, not looking where she was going, only knowing that she had to get as far away from the dwarves and the hobbits and everyone else in the whole bleeding world before she exploded.

 

~  ✧ ~

 

Thorin watched Bella leave with a strange unease. 

He’d asked Dwalin to follow Bella when they got to Bree, only because he still wasn’t sure what her motivations were for joining them. He’d seen Dwalin sitting with the hobbit on the side of the street, meant to turn away, before she’d frozen and jumped behind Dwalin as if ducking from an arrow. 

And as she rose and stepped up to meet the hobbits rushing up to her, that strange curling in on herself, the tension and the emptiness, had kindled the question building in his mind for the past week—why would such a woman wish to join with a band of strangers on a quest which would most likely end in her death?

Catching the end of that encounter, he was starting to guess.

Standing now, watching her dark golden curls bounce through the dirty, dreary village, he couldn’t help the queer twist in his chest. 

“You’re a bunch of low-lives, you are,” the halfling who had attempted to manhandle his burglar said in a shaky voice as he crouched next to his wife. 

“Excuse me?” Thorin turned back, enjoying the look of terror that passed over the halfling’s eyes as Dwalin cracked his knuckles.

“Taking advantage,” he mumbled, trying in vain to flip his wife over and stare up at him at the same time. “She’s mad, sure, but she’s still a hobbit. She belongs here, with family. You should be ashamed of yourselves, playing on her sense of grandeur. I don’t know what you think you’re going to get from her, but mad or not, she doesn’t—”

“Watch who you’re calling mad, boy,” Dwalin muttered, anger pitching his voice low. 

The hobbit’s eyes flicked between them, and he seemed to realize how thoroughly outmatched he was. “Serves her right,” he muttered, a dark look passing over his eyes as he shook his head. “Never knew what was best for herself anyway—”

Thorin didn’t know why he reached for the halfling, or what he was intending to do beyond scare him, but that same urge pulling him to follow Bella urged him to do something to this pompous little ass who spoke ill of her. 

“I’m not going to repeat myself,” he said, gripping the man’s upper arm so tight he lifted a bit onto the tips of his toes, “so listen closely. Bella Baggins left the Shire of her own accord as a personal favor to me, and anyone who thinks otherwise will have my sword to answer to.”

The hobbit’s eyes had grown so wide they looked like little pale grapes in his head, but he stammered, “And who are you, then?”

Thorin smiled, and felt the hobbit tremble in his grip. “A friend.”

He released the hobbit, who fell flat on his ass in the mud. Staring at the two pitiful halflings, he wondered how on earth Bella Baggins, with her fiery gaze and sharp tongue, had been born from such a soft place as the Shire.

“Hey, uncle,” Fíli called from behind him, jogging up to look curiously at the hobbits in the mud. It seemed the wife was finally coming back to her senses, spluttering around as she tried to right herself. “We just saw Bella walking off on her own. She seemed upset. Everything all right?”

“Oh, more hobbits,” Kíli said as he caught up, using a knife to pick something out from under his thumbnail. He adopted a wide smile that looked more like he was bearing his teeth, and waved. “Hello, hobbits!”

It seemed that was all the motivation they needed to jump to their feet and hurry off in the other direction, both of them half-covered in mud. 

“What happened?” Fíli asked, taking note of the look that passed between Thorin and Dwalin. 

“Did she say where she was going?” Thorin asked, looking down the street for some sign of her small form. 

“She just waved us off,” Kíli said with a frown. 

“Lass needs to blow off steam,” Dwalin muttered. 

Thorin frowned. “Aye, but I don’t want her wandering off on her own.” Bree was not a friendly place. The last time he’d been in the village, he would have been swarmed by brigands if not for Gandalf’s timely intervention. While he doubted Bella Baggins had any kind of bounty on her head, he knew that human villages could be deadly places for pretty young women on their own. 

He held out a hand to stop Fíli as he looked over his shoulder in concern. “Finish your errands. I’ll collect the burglar.” He ignored their protests, but stopped when Dwalin caught his arm. 

His expression was troubled, and somewhat guilty, as he looked down the road. “She’s a good one, Thorin,” he murmured, earning intensely curious looks from his nephews. “That or she’s the best liar I’ve ever met.”

He held Dwalin’s gaze, seeing the certainty in his eyes, and nodded. What she’d done to dispel his doubts, or how she had done it in only an hour, Thorin didn’t know, but Dwalin was not an easy man to trick. 

He left his nephews to their questions, keeping a keen eye out for golden brown curls and a dark red coat overtop dirty, voluminous green skirts. Bree had never appealed to him, with it’s shoddy architecture and rank animal-smell. It reminded him too much of humans to relax, even if it was a breeding ground of information. It was here that he’d started his ultimately fruitless quest to find his father. The place made him feel an outsider, and perhaps that was it’s appeal to the rest of the people milling about, but he’d had enough of feeling alienated and unwanted in the villages of Men.

It took him nearly half an hour, doubling back a few times to peer down every alley. He was starting to wonder how on earth the hobbit had disappeared so quickly, when he noticed a small figure sitting on a smaller wall at the far edge of the village, up on a hill above the East Road. 

Thorin went slowly, not wanting to startle her. He was still a few yards off when she said coldly, “The point of storming off in a huff is to be alone.”

His mouth twitched as he walked forward, finding her face set and staring off into the distance. “If I were to ask to join you, would you snap at me?”

“If I refuse, will you listen?”

He fought the widening of his smile, and waited.

It was a small thing, but she shifted to the side, making room for him on the little crumbling wall on the hill. 

Thorin perched next to her, and stared out over the fields. He could see the end of them now, the slow fade where they grew rough and rocky. Beyond lay the Misty Mountains, and over that—Erebor, and the last hope for his people.

“You know,” Bella started, voice small but firm, “I’ve sat on this wall so many times I’ve lost track, and I’ve never let myself wonder what lay beyond the moors. This was the edge of my world for so long, I’m not quite sure I’ll know what to do with myself once we leave.”

The candor in her voice startled him. He’d gotten used to not-so-veiled insults and implications about his lack of wits. Her voice was clear now, and high, and a little unsettling in its strength. 

“How many times have you been to Bree?” he asked.

“Once or twice a year for the past decade and a half. Sometimes more. And then a few times when I was younger.”

He looked at her, and found himself fixated on the slight indent in her mouth where she must have been biting the inside of her lip. 

It was such a vulnerable gesture, he was sure she did it without thought—another facet to the hobbit he’d not seen before, another side to set in place amongst the others as the full picture of her formed in his mind.

“Dwalin didn’t do anything to them after I left, right?”

He looked forward again, having a hard time following her train of thought. “No, he didn’t.”

She relaxed.

“I did tell them to stop gossiping about you, however. Forcefully.”

Her body folded in on itself so fast he nearly started. One second she was sitting straight upright and the next she had pressed her face into her lap and groaned so loudly she drew looks from a few passing humans. 

“Are you trying to make me lose my mind?” she mumbled into her skirts, already travel-worn after the week and change of travel. “Me losing my temper was bad enough, now they’ll probably be talking about this until I come back.”

“You think very highly of yourself, to draw such interest in your affairs.”

“Nothing happens in the Shire,” she muttered, rising and shoving her hands into her hair as if she wanted to yank the lot out of her skull. “This is more excitement than they’ve had in decades.”

Thorin’s brow lifted in amusement. “Your people are strange indeed, if _you_ are what passes for exciting.”

Bella stiffened, shot him a sour look, but hesitated when she saw his smile. “Very nice,” she murmured, a little laugh curling on her words. Taking a deep breath, she searched his face, but seemed unable to keep from looking back out across the moors. “I’d hoped we were clear of anyone I’d know this far out of the Shire.”

“Your friends are—”

“They’re not my friends,” she cut him off, something hardening the corner of her mouth. “Prisca is my cousin. Wilibald was—we were engaged.”

Thorin blinked, utterly taken aback. Of all the reasons for such petty drama, he had not prepared for _this_. He hadn’t realized his opinion of her was high enough to be challenged by the news that she’d considered marrying such a weak, petty thing, but he found the idea more than troubling. “You were engaged to that halfling?”

She shot him a curious glance. “Is that so surprising?”

“I think you would find a better husband in a mouse.”

Her brow creased. “And how would you know what I might look for in a husband?”

“I wouldn’t,” he said sharply, finding himself on unsteady ground. “I know little enough about you, Miss Baggins, but…”

What was he doing? He’d intended to bring the hobbit back before she got herself hurt or wandered off and fell into a ditch. He hadn’t intended to sit with her and commiserate on her failed engagement. 

“I should not have presumed,” he muttered, thinking he should leave, now, before the discomfort in his stomach could grow roots. 

“No, it’s,” she sighed sharply, folding her hands in her lap, “you’re right. I—I never meant for any of my personal life to interfere with the company’s business. Hopefully, it won’t happen again, as we’re about to go farther than I’ve ever been in my whole life, and unless there are hobbits lurking in the Misty Mountains who are distant cousins or something, it should be fine.” She ended with a frown, shook her head. “You needn’t bother with this. _Kings_ are above such earthly matters as my personal messes.”

His jaw clenched as he reined in his frustration. Why did she insist on reminding him at every opportunity she got that he was a king? He also didn’t know why it bothered him so much, only that she seemed determined to turn it into an insult. “We are all haunted by the mistakes of our youth,” he said, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

She cocked her head, but didn’t look at him. He had the strange impression she was filing his words away for later perusal. 

“Whoever he is,” he said, “he and your cousin seem to think you’re in danger from traveling with my Company.”

She snorted. “Oh, they’ve thought I was in danger for years now. You’ve just given them an excuse to interfere.”

He waited, sensed something lurking under the tension in her silence. 

“I’m not running away.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

She chewed on her lip again, and he had to turn away not to look at it. “ ‘Mad Bella Baggins,’ ” she murmured, so low he nearly didn’t hear. “It’s only been gossip until now, but I’m sure I’ll come back to the title all but printed on the deed to Bag End. ”

Thorin fought a swell of sympathy for the hardened outrage in her voice, that tightly-packed pain speaking to something inside him which he did not speak about, not even to his closest friends and family. 

Madness. 

He knew enough of madness to feel its looming shadow even on this little hill, half a world away from the source that had twisted his grandfather into a rough shell of the man he once was.

_I am not my grandfather_ , he told himself, pulling his mind back to the hobbit at his side.

“ ‘Dreams to big for her skirts, she has. Unnatural.’ ” There was a heavy pause as she sighed. “Is it mad to want more for my life than gardening and gossip?” she whispered, staring straight ahead at the horizon, eyes cutting a path across the sunlit moors and patches of trees. “To want mountains and adventure and…” Her throat bobbed, brow furrowed in fierce longing. 

“Why do you care what they think of you?” he asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

Her smile was sad and small. “Because I have to live here, and it’s lonely being the eccentric old maid on the hill.” Her smile soured. “Not all of us have piles of gold and a throne waiting for us at the end of this quest.”

He frowned. “Do you have no family elsewhere?”

Her small hands clenched in the fabric of her dress. “Not really. A few relatives, but it’s just me. And that damn wizard, when he decides to visit,” she added with a scowl.

His eyes moved to her of their own accord, her words dropping like stones into his stomach.

He recalled her house, Bag End, a sprawling thing for such tiny people. He had thought at the time that it might have held the entire Company comfortably for a few weeks. It was a decent enough place to live, though it made him feel like a rabbit in a warren, caged in by dirt and fine, porcelain dinnerware. 

He’d not thought about her living in such a place alone. 

“You don’t have to listen to me moan on,” she muttered, setting her jaw and sliding off the wall. “I’m sure you have better things to do.”

He didn’t. He’d purchased what he’d needed for the journey, and they had already acquired rooms for the night. And though he kept trying to find reasons to leave, he enjoyed hearing her talk. She had a sweet voice, bell-like and high, and oddly charming when it wasn’t being used to cut him to shreds. But he stood anyway, and said, “I apologize if my interference causes you more trouble.”

She laughed, the sound hitting his chest like wind-chimes. “Oh, an apology from a king. That must be worth a lot.”

He smiled tightly.

“You don’t like that, do you?” she asked, catching him off-guard.

He studied the wry smile tugging at her lips. “Would you use it against me if I said ‘yes’?”

“Most definitely,” she said, dark eyes shining even as her face held the ghost of the pain she’d shared with him.

_Bright Eyes_ , Gandalf had called her a few times, though he’d never explained why. Thorin had thought it strange at the time, though now he understood. It suited her.

“Come,” he murmured, “the others will be worried. I told them I’d bring my burglar back safe.”

Her lips pursed. “Yes, _your_ burglar. How important I feel, to be guarded and watched by all of you at every hour of the day. Choose Nori or Balin next time you want someone to trail after me, by the way. Or, you could simply abide by the contract I signed not to hamper your quest in any way, to the best of my ability. I find it interesting, also, that you think you might be able to watch me without my knowing. You brought me along to be sneaky, after all.”

“Not all of us are watching you out of distrust,” he mused as they made their way back into the village proper. “My nephews act of their accord.”

“Your nephews are horrible flirts.”

“If they’re bothering you—”

“I would tell them to stop.” She relaxed, pulling her coat a bit tighter. “It’s nice. Obnoxious, but nice.”

They walked in silence for a time, before she came to a stop. 

He slowed and met her gaze, faced with a determined, pensive look in her eyes. 

“I realize you don’t know me, Thorin Oakenshield, and I know you don’t trust me. But I’m not going anywhere. I gave you my word that I would help, and so I will.” Her expression tightened. “I meant what I said about proving you wrong. Do me the courtesy of letting me try.”

Before he could think of a response, she left him in the street and entered a slanting building. He hadn’t realized they’d reached the Prancing Pony already. 

Thorin struggled for a way to reconcile the swiftly changing picture of her in his mind. One minute she was snappish and burning, the next she was laughing with his nephews and spilling her heart out to him on a crumbling wall. It was like the woman was purposefully trying to keep him on his toes. 

He shifted his weight, trying to find his balance before joining the Company. He’d never been much for playing games with words. He’d never had the skill. As much as he enjoyed a clever tongue and a sharp mind, he didn’t have the patience for navigating the social cues and nuances of court life as a child, and certainly not the intricacies of clan politics when he was older. 

Maybe he _had_ been on his own for too long, to be thrown off by the whims of a errant hobbit. Or, perhaps she was simply different, and he was unused to her quick-fire emotions. 

Settling on the latter because it made him feel less feeble, he stepped off the street and into the dim, noisy chaos of the inn. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys! Sorry! I had a family emergency this weekend, which took literally all of my spoons. I spent most of Saturday and Sunday worrying and listening to The Adventure Zone to distract myself. I will respond to all of your comments soon, I promise (probably tomorrow), but I wanted to try to get this up today. Thank you for your patience! <3


	7. Slay You with His Tongue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Soldier, Poet, King" by The Oh Hellos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z8zZBBkIRw&index=7&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-)

The Inn of the Prancing Pony was the dirtiest, loudest, most crowded place Bella had ever been, including the Thain’s biannual beer festival where every able-bodied hobbit would crowd into his dining hall smelling of hops and pipe tobacco, and had always been something of a necessary evil during her trips to Bree. Most of the inns in town were used to hobbits, but the Prancing Pony was the only one to accommodate her smaller stature. It had always struck her as a dark, dingy place, where cloaked men sat to be alone and to mull over the hardships of the road. A lonely place, though it was full of people. 

She had never visited with a crew of motley dwarves before, however, and the change was immediate. The songs took on a softer, mellower hum in the background, the smoke felt more immediate and personal, and the food was better when forced to eat it quickly before thick fingers could snatch it from her plate. 

The Prancing Pony was an inn for travelers, and for the first time, Bella truly felt like she belonged. 

“How come you get a free meal?” Bofur asked in indignation as the kindly, red-faced innkeeper bustled back to his bar.

“I’ve been a patron of this inn for a long time,” Bella said, digging into the steaming brown stew with gusto. The innkeeper’s wife was the best cook outside the Shire proper, and Bella had made sure to tell her of that every time she visited. “Loyalty pays for itself.”

A murmur of begrudging respect swept over the table, and Bella hid a smile. 

“I still don’t know where you put it all,” Kíli said with a slight frown, staring as she tucked into her meal.

“Kíli,” Dori chastised from down the table, “it is rude to question a lady’s eating habits.”

“No, it’s not,” she laughed. “And I’m not a ‘lady,’ not in the way I think you mean, Master Dori. Hobbits might be prudish and well-mannered, but we don’t prance around food and the eating of it.”

“I’ll say.” Kíli grinned. “You eat almost as much as Bombur.”

The dwarf in question looked up from a loaf of bread the size of his head, and smiled widely. 

“I can eat a fair bit more than that. Hobbits generally eat seven full meals a day. Nine if it’s a holiday,” she said, smiling at their dumbfounded looks. 

“You’re joking,” Glóin said with a scowl, looking down as if he might see through the table to judge for himself. “You’re so small.”

Bella took another bite of stew to hide her discomfort. She’d so far been saved the burden of explaining the finer points of hobbit culture to the dwarves, but this was a topic which strayed too close for her comfort. She’d never been what passed for womanly in the Shire, her waist a bit too narrow and her hips less round than the norm. She ate as much as the next hobbit, but one drawback of spending as much time as she could walking and working and not sitting on her rump all day was that she’d never developed the full figure of her female neighbors. Her mother’s coat felt suddenly too large for her, and she shifted in her seat. 

“I am a bit smaller than most,” she said casually. “But I’m also taller than your average hobbit, and I lead a more…active lifestyle, so yes, I am relatively small, Master Glóin.”

“What are the odds we got you out of all the soft little bumpkins in the Shire, Miss Baggins?” Glóin asked with an indulgent laugh.

“Perhaps we were lucky,” Thorin mused. 

Her eyes flicked up as they all grunted in agreement, holding at the furrow in his brow. 

Ever since their chat on the hill that afternoon, he’d been acting oddly. He still watched her with those unerringly sharp eyes of his, but he also seemed wary. Bella had been surprised by the kindness in his sitting with her. She had seen him with his Company and they loved him, that was clear enough. If he bellowed from time to time, he seemed to genuinely care about the dwarves in his charge. 

Until that afternoon, she hadn’t thought that extended to her. 

She looked down, fighting the rush of heat in her chest at his intense gaze. “Perhaps I made the mistake of befriending an interfering busybody of a wizard.”

A wizard who had apparently disappeared for the evening, as he’d not returned since they all convened in the Prancing Pony’s dining room.

“I think you look nice,” Fíli said softly, an encouraging smile on his fair face. 

_Oh, dear,_ she thought. She would need to nip that in the bud before long. “Thank you, Fíli.”

“Oh, yes, the hobbit is a bonny lass,” Glóin continued, “no question, but I prefer a full-figured woman. No offense meant, Miss Baggins.”

Bella kept her face diplomatically clear as she fought the urge to laugh. One had to applaud him for his devotion to blunt honesty, at least. “None taken, Master Glóin. My mother was full-figured, and the most beautiful woman I’ll ever know.”

Glóin’s eyes went wide. “So, you _do_ have mothers and fathers?”

Bella blinked, her spoon halfway to her mouth. “As opposed to…?”

The rest of the dwarves shifted uncomfortably, though Balin had the grace to close his eyes in exasperation. “Mahal save me,” he muttered.

“Well,” Glóin continued, “we had a thought you might grow in the ground like cabbages.”

Bella managed to swallow her ale before she burst out laughing. “You didn’t.”

“I told you not to ask,” Óin said to his brother, loudly, as he squinted down at her.

“And are dwarven children mined from rock?” she said. 

Her eyes found Thorin’s, and she was surprised to find him grinning along with everyone else. “Aye,” he said, “and I’m sure every dwarven mother thinks her children are as precious as gems.”

“Well,” Glóin said awkwardly, “you can’t blame us for not knowing. You hobbits are a strange little people. And you’re young enough without parents of your own—” He cut off as Dwalin shoved an elbow into his chest. “What?”

Bella’s good humor flickered like a flame in a strong wind. “My parents died some time ago, Master Glóin.” She drank deep from her tankard, glad that Gandalf had yet to rejoin them. The wizard had a tendency to over-sympathize whenever the topic of her parents came up. “Young enough—what does that mean?”

Glóin finally seemed to have lost his desire to speak, and it was Bofur who answered, “Well, we don’t know how old you are. Gandalf wouldn’t tell us.”

Bella frowned. “I turned fifty last September, so I assure you, I am thoroughly middle-aged.”

“Middle-aged?” Balin asked, bushy eyebrows raised in curiosity. “You don’t look it, lass.”

The surprise in his voice caught her off-guard. Did he mean she looked like a child? 

Before she could respond, Fíli asked with a slowly widening grin, “You’re only fifty?”

“How old are you, then?”

“Eighty-two.”

“No, you’re not.” Bella scowled. “You can’t be.”

Thorin laughed, the warmth of it drawing Bella’s attention, as it was surprisingly infectious. “He is. I was present for his birth, and can account for each and every long, difficult year of his life.”

Bella blinked, trying to regain the thread of her indignation. “I’m older than you, surely,” she said to Kíli at her side.

He shook his head with the same shit-eating grin as his brother. “I’m seventy-seven, thank you very much.”

At her expression of dismay, the Company burst into full-bellied laughter. 

“If anything, I feel older than I did a moment ago,” she muttered, frowning into her tankard as she finished it off. “Well, hobbits don’t live past one hundred and ten, usually, and that’s only if they’re very lucky. So I _am_ middle-aged, thank you, and I’ll continue to act as such.”

Kíli reached for her hand with an affectionate laugh. “Don’t worry, little Bella—”

She whipped her hand away and banged her empty tankard onto his fingers. He yelped as the rest of the table roared.

“Miss Baggins prefers not to be called ‘little’, lad,” Dwalin said with smile, winking at her. 

“I don’t see what the point is,” she muttered, giving the hardened dwarf a small grin. “You’re just stating the obvious. Come up with something clever and I might appreciate it more.”

They devolved into talk of the beauty of dwarven women, Glóin perking up again and waxing endlessly about his wife, who might as well have been queen of the earth from the glowing praise heaped upon her by her husband. By the end, Bella was pretty sure she would have been able to recognize sweet, bountiful Dâgri at first sight by her stunning golden beard alone. 

The cheerful talk of the dwarves helped to keep her mind off darker matters, namely the interaction with her cousin and Wil. She hated that any of the Company had seen it, though Dwalin and Thorin seemed willing to keep it private, for now. Dwalin, she understood, since he gave her the impression that he was the kind of man who’d keep anyone’s secrets just because of his taciturn nature and unwillingness to indulge in the gossip of his fellow dwarves. That, and he just didn’t care enough to pass it on. 

Thorin surprised her, however. He didn’t seem like a busybody, but he certainly had gone out of his way to poke fun at her these last ten days. 

She found her eyes wandering to him when her mind drifted, which only grew more often the more she drank. Not as much as some, mind—poor Ori needed to be carried up to his room by Nori while Dwalin nearly did the same for a chuckling, stumbling Kíli. Bofur had simply passed out on the table while Glóin was looking rather glassy-eyed as he mumbled about the beautiful wide hips of his wife. 

Really, how on earth had she thought these dwarves to be hardened, nasty warriors when she first saw them? They were nearly as bad as the group of hobbits who liked to frequent the Green Dragon in Hobbiton—sweet, a bit uncouth, and entirely unable to hold their ale. 

When she finally excused herself and waved off Fíli’s attempts at an escort, she nearly jumped when Thorin rose with her. She managed to play it off as a hiccup, but there was something of a knowing smile tugging at his lips as he said, “I had thought to wait up for the wizard, but it seems our friend has vanished for the evening.” 

They slipped between the tables of the main room, a quiet murmur of voices and clinking glasses floating under his words. 

“He’ll do that,” she muttered.

“You really consider him family?” Thorin asked rather suddenly.

Bella hesitated before climbing the stairs to the upper floor. “I do. He’s been in my life long enough to know me better than anyone else.” She met his gaze, saw his brow furrow. “He was friends with my grandfather, and mother after that. I think he has a fondness for Tooks.”

“Tooks,” he repeated, his voice dropping as the noise of the main room dimmed and they made their way up the staircase. “Is that some hobbit term?”

“Sort of,” she laughed. “My mother was Belladonna Took before she married my father, Bungo, and took his name. The Tooks are notorious in the Shire for being rowdy and adventurous. Troublemakers, the lot of us.”

“Now it all makes sense,” he said with a slight smirk. 

“Why do I bother?” she asked with a laugh. 

“When did she die?”

Bella slowed, wondering why on earth he was asking her such personal questions. Even more strangely, she wondered why she didn’t seem to mind. “It’ll be fifteen years ago next month. A year after my father.” 

With a jolt, she realized that, to become king, his own father must have died. “When did, ah…”

“I’m not sure,” he answered, understanding her question. “He left Ered Luin a century ago to reclaim Erebor with a small company and was never heard from again, until Gandalf found him near death in a dungeon.”

Bella stopped and looked up at Thorin. The flickering candlelight painted his features sharp and severe, shadows pooling under his pale blue eyes and hiding amongst the darkness of his beard and hair. She saw the king in him then, more pronounced than when he was sitting with his friends and family. 

“That’s horrible. Do you know who captured him?”

Thorin’s jaw clenched. “I have some ideas.” He paused, and in the silence she felt him decide something. “My people’s wealth was once well known across the land. There are many who would reclaim Erebor, some for greed, some for glory, and some for dark reasons I cannot know.”

Bella watched him, the shadow of something growing behind her, rising in her stomach. “Do the others know?”

“Some do.”

“Well,” she murmured, “this quest of yours grows more exciting by the hour.”

His gaze grew heavy, and when he spoke, his voice was like a roiling storm cloud. “You aren’t afraid?”

She frowned. “I’m not sure there’s anything to be afraid of yet.”

Thorin was silent for a long time, brow furrowed as he searched her expression. It was small, but a little twitch in his mouth broke the tension, a smile dancing at the edge of his lips. 

“What?” 

“You were really going to marry that mouse?”

His train of thought took her by surprise. “You’re very caught up in that, aren’t you?”

She walked toward her door at the end of the corridor, grinning as she heard a few familiar rattling snores in the nearby rooms. Ori’s brothers would have a lovely night. Finding him walking behind her, eyes gleaming with interest, she leaned back against her door and sighed. “I grew up with him. He started expressing interest in courting me.” She swallowed down the lump in her throat and continued, “After my father’s death, I thought I should consider settling down. It took me awhile, but I managed to convince myself he was someone I could spend my life with.” 

She felt her voice growing tight, but she couldn’t look away from Thorin, his eyes focused and intent upon her every word. “And then my mother grew ill, and none of it seemed to matter anymore. He didn’t want to wait, so he gave me an ultimatum, and I refused. He didn’t take that very well, so I pushed him in a lake.” She grinned as Thorin snorted. “Strangely enough, that was the last marriage proposal I ever got.”

His humor dimmed as quickly as it came. “He pressed you in the midst of your mother’s illness?”

“Right after she died, actually.” At the disgust in his expression, she continued, “It’s not as rude as you think. Hobbits don’t indulge in grief and mourning more than a party and some fond farewells. We live happy, easy lives, so why be sad?”

“That is cruel.”

She dipped her head. “I would agree with you. I assume it’s different for dwarves?”

It took him a long time to respond, but when he did, his voice was soft. “Dwarrow-deaths are seen as a celebration, yes, for we all long to return to the hall of our maker, Mahal. But for those left to this world, we don’t place a time limit on grief. Were a life perfect and without trials of its own, any dwarf might still grieve his whole life for the loss of a parent, though we know they’ve moved on to something better.”

“You believe in an afterlife?”

His brow furrowed. “You don’t? Where would your soul go after it left your body?”

“I have no idea,” she said. The strength of his conviction made her feel oddly hollow. “There isn’t an afterlife for us, or none that I know of. We just…end.”

“Just like that?”

“Most hobbits don’t get more existential than next year’s crop rotation,” she said with a small smile, wondering at the shock in his eyes. “If there is an afterlife for a hobbit, I’d expect it to be equally dull as regular life. I, for one, don’t fancy being doomed to sit in my garden for all eternity, no matter how fond I am of my chickens.”

Thorin stared at her with a fond smile. “You might just be the most obstinate person I’ve ever met, Miss Baggins.”

“ _I’m_ obstinate?” She frowned. “That’s rich. Next you’ll tell me your pot isn’t really black, just covered in soot.” At his blank expression, she continued, “Never mind. Goodness, how did we get here?”

“Are you that drunk?” His chuckle resonated deep in his chest. “I thought you were merely flushed.”

Heat burned over her chest and cheeks, but she raised her chin and said archly, “I’m sure my love life is nothing compared to that of a dwarf-king’s. How many dwarven ladies do _you_ have waiting with sick hearts for you back in the Blue Mountains, then?”

His eyes narrowed. “You must have a very low opinion of me indeed, to think I left more than one woman waiting.”

“Oh, come on.” She crossed her arms, not taking the bait. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

He shifted on his feet, clasping his hands behind his back. “There is no one waiting for me.”

“No one you were promised to at birth? No dwarven princess in a far off land dreaming of a dour, solemn king to glare at her for the rest of her life?”

His brow furrowed in amusement. “Where do you get such fanciful ideas?”

“How am I supposed to know anything about kings? Or dwarves, for that matter?” She grinned, cocked one brow. “It’s not like you lot are chatty with outsiders. Although now I think on it, it’s probably just because I’ve only ever met sober dwarves before. You all seem very eager to talk at length with a bit of wine in your bellies.”

He stared at her, the silence growing thick with whatever he left unsaid. 

“Fine,” she said, trying not to sound too disappointed, “don’t talk about your personal life. Although you asked about mine, so I don’t see—”

“Dwarrows don’t love easily,” he said, stepping forward and lowering his voice, as if he were telling her a secret. “Nor do they love more than once. You might have noticed we treat our women with a certain reverence.”

“I might have,” she murmured, taken aback by the intensity of his gaze.

“Dwarven women are rare, though no less capable than men. Rather the opposite.” He smiled wryly. “In fact, most think it’s a punishment from Ilúvatar to instill in them such superiority, for when Mahal created the Seven Fathers, he did so without the Creator’s blessing. Our women are stronger, more cunning. They love more fiercely, and so we are a lesser people for their absence. Finding one’s…partner is not a simple thing. Most dwarrows don’t.”

It took Bella a moment to find her voice. It seemed like an awful lot of explanation for a simple problem. “Do dwarven men not find love with each other?”

“The lucky ones do, but partners are still rare amongst men.”

“So,” she blinked, finding the concept difficult to grasp, “you don’t just…marry for companionship? You have to wait for this partner of yours?”

His face went rigid in shock. “What is marriage for if not to pronounce your love to the one whose soul sings in harmony with your own?”

She exhaled a laugh, smiling over her discomfort. “Convenience?”

“You would marry for convenience?” he asked, his voice hard in disbelief. 

“ _I_ wouldn’t, no,” she said. “But many hobbits do. What of loneliness? Could you not find someone who filled that role without him or her being your…soul mate? That sounds like a lot of pressure to put on a relationship. I mean, what if you don’t like this partner of yours? It could be quite a hassle.”

“It is,” he said, his voice growing deeper, urgent. “Love should not be easy, or convenient. Love is a force of nature like a storm or the shifting of the earth. It is like a wildfire sweeping across a forest. Love binds families. It forges kingdoms. Love is life, and life is not simple. Dwarrows love jealously and fiercely, and not for anything but the strength of a bond forged in fate do we give ourselves to another. For when we give our hearts, we give all, and can only expect the same in return.” 

In the silence that followed his words, Bella might have believed the world had faded, and the space between them was all that was left. Her heart pounded in her throat, heat rushing up her chest. In in a distant corner of her mind, she remembered that they were still standing in the hall, in a dirty inn with a bunch of sleeping dwarves surrounding them, separated only by thin doors. But her focus had narrowed to the blue eyes before her, caught and suspended in time. He spoke like a character from her childhood books, with passion and zeal enough to reach up from the page and stir her to tears.

But he wasn’t in a book. He was real, and standing right in front of her.

“Forgive me,” he muttered, his voice rough, though he didn’t look away, nor did he step back. “It is not something we speak about often.”

She hadn’t realized she’d pressed herself back into the door until it shifted slightly with her weight. “Oh,” she said, relaxing somewhat, although it only served to close the distance between them. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you were right. I asked first.”

Over the thrill dancing in her chest, she said, “Why did you, by the way?”

“I…” He sighed, and she almost imagined the heat of his breath ghosting her skin. “I cannot understand you, Miss Baggins.”

She grinned, and flushed anew when his eyes followed the movement of her lips. “I’m not trying to be elusive.”

“I know,” he murmured, so low it was barely more than a rough exhalation of air. 

She looked between his eyes, noting the fine lines crinkling his brow, the shadows that threw the pale plane of his cheek into sharp contrast against the line of his nose. “How frustrating that must be for you,” she murmured, barely trusting herself to breathe.

The longer they stared at each other, the more she felt the space between them grow taut. Heat kindled in her stomach to join the flush along her neck and cheeks. Something unfurled inside her, an untethering akin to anger, but sweeter, more ferocious. She had the sudden, violent urge to surge up and kiss this king who spoke so passionately about love. 

Until a floorboard creaked, and the spell broke. 

Thorin moved back with surprising grace as Balin stepped around the corner. The old dwarf froze, taking in the sight of Bella staring intently at the floor and Thorin standing on the other side of the hallway, not looking at her. 

“Evening,” he said mildly. 

“Bella had a few questions about our culture,” Thorin said at once.

She looked up, trying not to look too stunned. It was the first time Thorin had ever said her first name. 

“Oh?” Balin continued, sharp eyes glancing between them. “About what specifically?”

Bella reordered her thoughts, turned to him with a flat smile. “Beards.”

Thorin’s composure broke as he smothered a snort. 

“Beards,” Balin repeated.

“Ye-es,” she said slowly, dragging the word out as she scrambled for something to say, “I wondered what the customs were for braiding beads into your beards. Glóin went on and on about his wife’s glorious beard, about all the different gems and jewels she’d braided into it, but he never said what they were for, or if they meant anything. Granted, I’m not sure if they would. I know hobbits have different meanings for flowers and herbs and the like, but that might just be an eccentricity of ours. No reason to think anyone else abides by such silliness. Not that it’s a silliness for you, of course, if you do have such customs.” 

She heard herself talking as if from another room, watching on as both dwarves stared at her but unable to stop. “You know, now that I think about it, this might be a topic for another time. It’s late and I’m tired and letting my mind wander where it will. I shouldn’t have kept Thorin from sleeping—I mean, Mister—Master Oakenshield.” She struggled for some way to stop her damned lips from moving, sensing her mind slipping out of her ears and dribbling onto the floor. “Right, well, yes, I think it’s time for sleep. Goodnight, then. See you in the morning. Obviously. Busy day tomorrow, what with all the traveling.”

She cleared her throat, turned, fumbled for the handle, and closed her door. 

Bella allowed herself one moment of wide-eyed mortification, staring unfocused at the floor— _Beards? Really?_ —before moving swiftly into preparations for bed. 

The whole thing was entirely understandable, of course. She’d had a bit too much to drink, and once Thorin had started in on all the intense love talk, she was bound to get caught up in it. She knew herself enough to know that grand, romantic stories and explanations would get her excited. It made perfect sense that she would want to kiss him. He was an attractive dwarf, and while the glowering, broody demeanor more often annoyed her, it wasn’t unpleasant to look at from time to time. It had been an odd day. She was tired, emotional, and about to venture farther than she’d ever been from home. 

Her heart was merely over-excited and latching on to the closest thing it could find. She wasn’t young enough to chalk it up to anything else, no matter what the Company thought of her age. And it wasn’t like she’d had much to latch onto in the Shire. The place was a veritable desert of anyone who spoke so eloquently about love, at least anyone who was available. So what if Thorin wasn’t the solemn stick in the mud she’d thought he was? She was simply overdue for some excitement. She would mellow out soon enough. 

She slumped into bed and pulled the covers over her head, and tried not to think of anything except the musty smell of her sheets. Unsuccessfully.

 

~  ✧ ~

Thorin stood in the hallway, staring anywhere except at the door to the room the hobbit had just entered. 

Balin cleared his throat, rocked back on his heels. “She’s enthusiastic. I’ll give her that.”

“Yes.” He searched for something else to say, but his mind was still wrapped around her sly smile, the spark kindling in her eyes.

“Good of you to offer to teach her,” Balin said, walking forward with a badly hidden smile. 

“It’s not—”

“I know, lad,” he said with a grin, patting him on the back. “You’re too wound up and noble for it to be anything more than what I think I saw.”

Thorin’s jaw clenched. “I’m not sure what you’re suggesting, Balin.”

“Of course you’re not.” The dwarf chuckled. “Goodnight, Thorin. You heard the lass. Busy day tomorrow.”

Still Thorin stood rooted to the spot, trying to determine where this temporary paralysis had originated inside him. He blinked, exhaled deeply, and strode the short distance to the room he shared with his nephews. 

Kíli’s snores greeted him, and helped to dislodge the fog clouding his mind. How had the conversation started? She’d asked the same, of course, and he vaguely remembered making a joke, but the question stood. How had they started in on _love_ , of all things, a topic he rarely discussed with anyone, let alone halflings he’d met only ten days ago? Why had he asked her about her failed courtship? What had possessed him to even wonder…

Was it the slight sadness in her eyes at dinner? The brittle laugh she’d given when talking about her parents? The stubborn tilt of her chin as she tried to defend her identity as an old maid, though she looked far fairer than any old maid he’d met in his travels?

_Mahal damn me_ , he thought with a scowl, going to the washbasin on the other side of the room and splashing cold water onto his face, scrubbing fingers through his beard, _and damn the confounding hobbit._

She made no sense, hiding herself behind a sharp smile and bright eyes, but giving freely information that might have shamed anyone else. She poked and prodded, and joked about having the same done to herself, and yet didn’t refuse to answer. 

He felt himself in some kind of jerking dance, being led by someone as foreign to him as the moon was to sunlight. 

Kíli’s loud snore brought him back to his senses. No, he didn’t understand the hobbit. Not at all, and he was starting to expect he never would. Whatever his fascination, it was a distraction he could ill afford. 

He was saved the trouble of any further rumination on the topic by Fíli’s quiet arrival.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so begins the part of the fic where these idiots over-correct to compensate for their feelings because they're both emotionally repressed stubborn types! Everyone's favorite! (This is my favorite part, actually...)


	8. Pretending Not to Feel Alone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Vagabond" by MisterWives](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNL5MydJ9ic&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-&index=8)

They set out from Bree in high spirits, one night on even semi-comfortable beds doing wonders for the Company’s morale. They made good time crossing through the marshes and moors, heading into wilder country stretched before the Misty Mountains. Thorin drove them hard, but fairly, and if anyone noticed that he and Bella exchanged nothing more than short pleasantries and only when it was absolutely necessary, no one mentioned it. 

Bella had awoken in Bree on little sleep, feeling irritated and tired and embarrassed, and done her best to be brisk and polite to him when he’d caught her eye at breakfast. If she could get him alone, perhaps they might iron out…whatever had happened between them the previous night. If anything had happened. She still wasn’t sure. With a hobbit, she might easily bring it up over food, ask if there was anything more to his words than curiosity and simple attraction, and have done with it. 

Thorin being a dwarf might not complicate things as a rule, but Thorin being _Thorin_ might. Indeed, when she greeted him, he seemed more than happy to shove the whole conversation under the rug, and so she followed his lead, begrudgingly. If she felt a little put out and confused, she chalked it up to her pride and ignored it. She’d meant what she said to Dwalin about entanglements, and she didn’t even know if she _liked_ Thorin, really. There was something appealing about him, and he certainly could be charming when he wished, but they’d spent more time snapping at one another than actually talking, so the whole thing was better forgotten. She was nothing if not sensible about these things. After all, she’d not spent most of her life alone and happily single to go into a frenzy about some lost, brooding dwarf-king and his erstwhile attention. Even if he had kept her up all night. _Especially_ because he’d kept her up all night, actually.

As they set out that morning, however, she had a hard time not staring at the back of his head, only exacerbated by the fact that Balin kept grinning whenever he caught her eye. _Bothersome old dwarf_.

When they stopped for camp night, she thought she’d done very well avoiding him without _avoiding_ him, as she didn’t want to hurt his feelings, nor draw attention to the fact that anything had changed between them. Which of course, it hadn’t. In fact, she’d been doing such a good job of distracting herself, she missed the first time he tried to get her attention. 

“Burglar,” he repeated in a gruff voice right over her shoulder.

She looked up from Myrtle’s saddle with a start, swallowing her annoyance at the tone in his voice. “Yes?” She fought the urge to check her straps, knowing her saddle was firmly in place on Myrtle’s back. It had been perfect since he’d had to catch her when it slipped a few days ago, and damn her if she gave him any more excuses to criticize her.

He wasn’t looking at her, but examining something in the bag slung over his pony’s saddle. “You’ll be taking over charge of the ponies.”

Bella stared. “And what do you mean by that?”

Thorin’s face was impassive, his posture relaxed, unbothered. “We journey into dangerous territory. The ponies can’t be left to wander freely anymore, and since you have no responsibilities with which to occupy yourself when we camp, you will be take over their safety and keeping.”

“For all of them?”

He met her gaze, something hard sliding into place behind his pale blue eyes. “I thought I spoke plain enough, but I can repeat myself if you misunderstood.”

Beside him, Dwalin and Glóin tensed, while Óin hummed pleasantly to himself as he walked between them all, oblivious to Thorin’s words as he was momentarily without his ear trumpet.

Bella held Thorin’s gaze, anger flashing at the back of her mind. “I understood you fine, blessed with higher than normal intellect and rather keen hearing. What I _don’t_ understand is why I should be responsible for everyone else’s pony. My duties on this quest are quite clear, and as you insist on calling me ‘burglar,’ I presume you know that. If you had wanted me to be your stableboy, perhaps you should have included that in the contract I signed.”

“Your contract specified ‘any reasonable request of additional duties, excepting those which place you or your person in harm’s way.’ You are an equal member of this Company.” His voice dropped, his brow arched. “Or do you think yourself so above us that you would not deign to care for our ponies?”

The leather of Myrtle’s lead twisted in her grip as Bella fought the urge to scream obscenities at him. If this pompous dwarf thought to bait her into caring ill for his pony, he would need to find another hobbit. Proud, she might be, but there was more than enough spite in her to play along. For now. 

“Of course not, _your majesty_ ,” she murmured, noting with some pleasure the sharp look that passed between Dwalin and Glóin behind him. “Thank you for entrusting me with such a noble task. I will undertake it with much gratitude and _humilty._ ”

Thorin stared down at her upheld hand, as if he hadn’t thought she would agree, but gave over his lead without comment. 

She watched him stalk off to the rest of the group, thinking of all the ways she might teach his pony to bite him in the ass on her command. 

“Well,” she snapped at her spectators, “you heard our _beneficent_ leader. Give me your damn ponies.”

Over the next few weeks, she took to her new duty with gusto, ensuring that each and every pony shined like a newly-minted coin from her careful grooming of their coats, that every saddle was secure and tight. Thorin did not comment on her magnificent job along with the rest of the dwarves, nor did he speak much to her rather than bark orders, but she took pleasure in the annoyed twist in his mouth whenever she caught him watching her brush down his pony.

What on earth had happened to change him from the man who’d spoken so passionately of love and death into this taciturn boor who could barely stand to look at her? Even the playful rogue who’d met her in those woods would be preferable to this solemn tyrant who seemed less happy with her presence than with Gandalf’s. He’d been so kind to her in Bree. She didn’t understand where all of that had gone.

A voice in the back of her mind, which she’d come to think of as borne from her father’s gentle patience, told her to give him some understanding. He had lost much even before setting out on a quest to reclaim a home taken from him by a dragon. A quest which had claimed the life of his grandfather and father. He had every right to be solemn and cold. He was a king after all. That responsibility must be weighing on him the further along they went. 

But he didn’t have to be rude. 

It made her feel silly for confiding in him, even if he’d expressed interest in getting to know her. In her darker moments, she wondered if it was simply the shock of finding out someone might have wanted to marry her that made him drop his guard, as if she were so undesirable to him he couldn’t possibly understand the appeal.

Instead of dwelling on it, however, Bella threw herself into getting to know the young princes, neither of whom seemed to notice their uncle’s disapproval of her. Her friendship with the other dwarves slowly grew into more than one of convenience as well as the weeks wore on. They were a kind bunch, and full of stories, and Bella found them all surprisingly willing to listen to her own. 

Gandalf was as pleasant as usual, leaving at random and without warning only to show up a day later mumbling cryptic excuses. If she’d thought he might help her grow used to the dwarves’ Company, she was disappointed. He also seemed to have lost all tact, frequently commenting on her sour demeanor whenever Thorin was around, drawing more attention to the fact that she could barely look at the dwarf without scowling. 

Between the wizard and the dwarf-king, she was surprised she hadn’t lost her temper sooner.

It was two weeks since they’d left Bree, all of them settled for an evening meal, the ponies expertly secured for the night, Fíli taking first watch, when, in response to Nori lamenting the lack of mushrooms for their stew, Thorin said, “Perhaps our burglar can go mushroom hunting tomorrow. Her keen senses will no doubt unearth handfuls of treasure.”

Bella was two seconds from throwing her full, steaming bowl at his head, when Gandalf chuckled and added, “Hobbits do cultivate an extraordinary love of mushrooms and the like. The best truffle-hunters I’ve ever had the fortune to meet. Bella came back with a whole wheelbarrow one day a few years ago and my belly was never so happy.”

Bella’s vision went red as she froze, every muscle in her body wanting to explode. She took three deep breaths, and surged to her feet. “Give me that,” she muttered to Kíli, taking the food from his hands he had intended to give to his brother, and stomping off to the edge of camp. 

Pity she didn’t have more pots to throw at the damn wizard’s head. 

Outside of the flickering ring of the campfire and Thorin’s relentless glower, she eased a bit and slowed to a pleasant walk as she listened to the quiet rustle of the forest, the distant trickle of a river they would come upon tomorrow and follow for a few weeks until climbing into the mountains. 

“Took you long enough,” Fíli said with a groan, stretching as he turned, only to freeze as he caught sight of her. “Oh, Bella, I’m sorry. I thought—”

“Disappointed?” She handed him his food, fought a grin at his hesitation. “I needed to stretch my legs. Do you mind if I join you?”

He cleared his throat, gestured to the rock he’d chosen for his perch. “Of course not.”

The night chill sent a little tremor through Bella’s spine as she breathed in her stew. The spices she’d bought in Bree had improved their food drastically, though Bombur had taken a while to admit it. 

“Are you cold?” Fíli asked.

“I’m fine. I figured it might have warmed up by now, we’re so close to summer. Though I suppose the closer we come to the mountains, the colder it will get.” She waved him off when he made to get up and take off his coat for her. “Fíli, please, I’m—”

“I’m sweating, really,” he said, holding out his coat pointedly.

She eyed it for a moment, before relenting. “You are too nice,” she murmured as he draped it over her shoulders. It was a heavy thing, made of fur and leather and more padding than she’d realized. 

“My mother would flay me alive if I let a lady sitting next to me shiver without at least offering,” he said with a grin, sitting back on the rock next to her. 

“Can she scold you all the way from the Blue Mountains?”

“I wouldn’t put it past her,” he muttered under his breath, tucking into his food.

Bella laughed. “She sounds lovely.”

“She is.” 

They lapsed into silence. Bella had to admit that the coat was marvelously warm. She might need to ask Fíli how it had been made, to see if she couldn’t fashion one for herself when she returned home.

“She didn’t want me to come, you know,” Fíli said abruptly. “Thought it would be too dangerous.”

“I can understand that,” Bella murmured, looking at him out of the corner of her eyes. “You’re her firstborn son. She must care about you greatly.”

“I’m also my uncle’s heir. I have to grow up at some point. Kíli, I understand wanting to keep home. More trouble than he’s worth on a good day.” He looked at her with wry smile, and added, “Don’t tell him that. He’ll never let me hear the end of it.”

She grinned. “I don’t know your mother, obviously, but my guess is she’d prefer that neither of you grow up at all.”

He sighed, nodded. “You are probably right.”

“I always am.” Bella smiled in self-satisfaction as she dunked her hard biscuit into Bombur’s stew, letting it soften and soak up the juices. “It can’t have been easy on her, though, to have both you and Kíli leave, along with your uncle. That’s a large chunk of her family gone.”

He was silent for a long time, staring down at his bowl with distant, heavy eyes. “I know,” he murmured.

She let him gather his thoughts, finishing off her bowl and tucking Fíli’s coat around her. Her mind drifted to thoughts of what a normal dwarf’s life might be like, of what Fíli’s mother did while her sons were off reclaiming their family’s ancestral home. _Dwarf princesses probably don’t garden_ , she reasoned, remembering Thorin’s insistence that their women were smarter, fiercer, and more precious than their men. 

Fat lot of good that superiority would do this dwarf princess if her family died on the other side of the world, with her unable to stop it. 

“How did you do it?” Fíli whispered. 

Pulled from her thoughts, she said, “Magnificently.” She nudged him with her shoulder as he chuckled. “What specifically, though?”

“How did you leave home?”

“Oh.” She considered, letting her eyes wandering over the dark landscape. The thought had occurred to her a few times since leaving Bree. The journey hadn’t been easy, but she wasn’t bogged down with missing her home as much as she’d thought she’d be. Rather than relief, however, she felt guilt. She should have missed the Shire more. “I think I’d had my foot out the door for a long time,” she murmured, “so when you lot finally showed up and gave me a reason, I didn’t look back.”

“You don’t miss it?” 

She looked at him to find his eyes imploring, wide and vulnerable in a way that made her heart twist. Fíli always seemed softer than his brother, when he let himself slow down and be quiet. Sitting with him now, Bella was struck by how young the light looked in his eyes. 

“I do, I suppose. The silly things like my bed and my clothes, and my chickens, of course, but… Bag End is the only thing I have left of my parents, and I miss them quite a lot.”

“But you don’t miss the Shire?”

“The hills and the forests and the gardens? Yes. The people? Not really. I think after all the fuss, they’ll be happy to see me gone for a while.” She tried to cut the hard tone of her voice with a smile. “But the Shire and Bag End will be there, waiting for me. I’m lucky in that way.”

Fíli nodded, a deep furrow in his brow that reminded her uneasily of his uncle. 

“Do you miss the Blue Mountains?” 

“Yes,” he said at once, relief and guilt apparent in his voice. “I didn’t think I would, but I fucking do.” He winced, and then relaxed. “I suppose I don’t need to apologize for swearing in front of you.”

Bella snorted. “You could, but I won’t.”

He eyed her for a moment, studying her face. “I miss it all, Bella.” He shook his head, frustration in the twist of his mouth. “I miss the sunrise coming up over the peaks and painting everything violet. I miss the smell when it rained. It was this harsh, salty brine that made you feel like the ocean had been dumped over your head. I miss the people, the crowded halls and squabbling clansmen.” He laughed, rolled his eyes. “I was so damn eager to leave, I didn’t even say goodbye to most of my friends. Now here I am, out in the middle of nowhere, thinking about how much I want to go find my mother and ask her to make me sweet-cakes. I miss the way she’d scold me and tell me to go find something useful to do, and when I came back, our halls would smell like honey and cinnamon.” His voice dropped, soft and sad. “I miss her most of all. I knew I would, but I didn’t think it would hurt so much.”

Bella fought the surge of empathy in her throat, blinking as her eyes burned. “Have you ever been away from home before?”

He shook his head, faint desperation shining in the corners of his eyes. “And I might not go back. If this quest succeeds, I won’t leave Erebor. I can’t.”

“You don’t know that,” she murmured. “You dwarves live a long time. You never know what the future holds, Fíli.”

“I know I might visit again, one day,” he murmured, shoulders hunching, “but it won’t be the same. It can’t be. If we fail and I go back, it’ll just be a reminder that it’s not _really_ home, not like Erebor could have been. And if we reclaim the Lonely Mountain, Ered Luin will just be a memory, a placeholder. I grew up on stories uncle and mother told Kíli and I of our kingdom, of Thrór’s glorious palace cut from the mountain, blessed by Mahal to be the mightiest kingdom in dwarven history. I couldn’t _not_ come to help, but…”

Bella watched him shake the sadness from his eyes, shore himself up and paste on a confident smile. She couldn’t help but fall a little in love with this boy—no matter that he was older than she was—who missed his mother, and his home. 

“My father used to say that home is where the heart finds peace,” she said, swallowing the lump in her throat as she pictured the plaque above her mantle back in Bag End. “You can’t just sit and wait for it to fall into your lap.”

“Is that why you came with us?”

Bella hesitated. “Maybe. To tell you the truth, I’m not really sure why I came. At the time, I think it was just to spite your uncle.” She grinned as Fíli snorted. “But…maybe.”

“It’s a nice thought, anyway.”

“That’s what I think. And maybe you’ll get to Erebor, realize this whole quest was a load of dung, and go back to Ered Luin that much the wiser.”

He hummed in consideration, brow furrowed. “Didn’t mean to dump all that on you,” he murmured, shifting in discomfort. 

“It’s all right. I prefer that to Óin chastising me about my herb garden nearly a month after we’ve left and I can’t do anything about it.” She reached out and patted his knee. “You can always talk to me, Fíli.”

Before she could slip her hand back into his coat, he set his bowl aside and took it in both of his. “Thank you for listening, Bella,” he murmured softly. “I’m glad you decided to come.”

Bella tensed, wondering how best to go about letting him down gently. “Fíli, you know I’m very fond of you,” she started, pulling her hand gently from his. “But I worry you’ve gotten the wrong idea about…well, about our relationship.”

His brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

_Oh goodness_ , she thought with a pained smile. Why did he have to be so earnest? “I think you’re a good friend. You’ve been very kind to me, and I’m so grateful, but I don’t want you to start—I don’t think of you in any, well, romantic way.” His expression froze, and she barreled forward, “Not that I think you’re not a wonderful person. You are, I just don’t think of you in that way…” She trailed off, eyeing the twitch at the corner of his mouth. 

“Bella,” Fíli said solemnly, doing a poor job of hiding his growing smile, “are you about to tell me you don’t love me?”

Bella snatched her hand away with a scowl as Fíli grinned. He looked so like his brother in that moment, she fought the urge to smack him. “Oh, you little shit.”

His voice grew deep and affected. “Because I’m not sure my heart could take it.”

“I take it all back,” she muttered. “I don’t like you. I think you’re a foul person who deserves nothing but misery for the rest of your stupidly long life.”

“Would that I could earn your love,” he said dramatically, raising his voice in mock sorrow.

“All right, that’s enough,” she snapped. “You better stop or your uncle will come out here and yell at me for distracting you.”

“True enough.” He chuckled. “I should be happy to think you find me such a ‘wonderful person.’ ”

“I don’t. I was lying.”

“Come on,” he murmured, nudging her with his shoulder. “It was a bit funny.”

“Why is it so funny to think you fancied me? Why on earth is it so strange to think anyone should be romantically interested in me?” She crossed her arms, trying not to sound petulant. “Honestly, you’d think I looked like a troll. I’ll have you know that I’m very attractive for a hobbit. I might not have a long braided beard, and hips the size of a dairy cow, but I’ve been told many times that I am quite beautiful. By more than one person.”

Fíli eyed her curiously, looking somewhat uncomfortable. “I never said you weren’t beautiful, or that I didn’t find you appealing.”

“I _am_ appealing.” 

“I thought you didn’t want me to fancy you.”

“I don’t.”

Fíli hesitated, and then draped an arm over her shoulder. “I think anyone would be lucky to have you, Bella Baggins.”

“What’s with all the flirting, then?” she asked, shoving him away half-heartedly. 

“Oh, I thought I fancied you for a while, but then I got to know you.” He caught her empty bowl as she tried to hit him in the head. “I mean that I figured out I _don’t_ , settle down, woman. You’re more like a sister—an older sister,” he added with a grin, “who frequently hits me when I annoy her.”

Bella relaxed, slightly put out. “Well, now I don’t feel bad about letting you down. Does Kíli also think of me as an _older_ sister?”

“Kíli likes pissing you off.”

“Does he,” she muttered.

“You don’t exactly make it difficult, you know.” He shrugged. “Kíli likes to be the center of attention, and you’re new.”

“So once the shine wears off, I’m not interesting?”

“Is this your way of telling me you fancy my brother instead of me?”

“Of course not,” she muttered, ignoring his grin. “I fancy neither of you.”

“But you’d choose me,” he insisted, waggling his eyebrows, “if you had to.”

She shook her head, rolling her eyes as he puffed up in victory. “Save me from the egos of dwarfling princes.”

Fíli hummed a laugh and pulled her into a hug despite her protesting frown. “I meant what I said about being glad you’re here, though. Even if I don’t plan on courting you.”

Bella resigned herself to the hug, admitting with reluctance that it was nice. She liked Fíli a lot, and she relaxed to think she wouldn’t need to let him down. A little knot unwound from her chest, and she leaned into his embrace. 

It’d been a long time since she’d had a friend. 

“Is dwarven courting a big production?” she asked.

“Oh yes,” he said, releasing her, “it’s months and months of gifts and outings and long, private conversations. My parents took nearly a decade to marry, and they’d known each other since they were children. Dwarrows don’t enter into courting without being relatively sure they’ve found their…the right person, and even then, they take a long time getting around to it. Very serious affair.”

“I’ll bet,” she murmured, remembering her conversation with Thorin, about dwarves searching their whole lives for their partners.

“And what of hobbit courting? Are there carrots involved?”

“That would depend on the hobbit,” she said, laughing. “It’s complicated, I guess, though it doesn’t take as long. It’s more important that the couple doesn’t get in the way of any feuds or other family business. There’s lots of meetings, chaperoned events, parties, and that’s all before the wedding itself. And flowers.”

“Really? Flowers?” He frowned, as if the idea were silly.

“Yes, flowers,” she said tartly. “Hobbits like flowers.”

“Do _you_ like flowers?”

“Last I checked, I was a hobbit.”

Fíli shrugged. “You don’t seem much like a hobbit. Not compared to the ones we met in the Shire.”

“Oh? And what do I seem like?” she asked, finding she didn’t mind the idea so much as she might have a few months ago. Perhaps the farther out she got from the Shire, the less the feeling of being an outsider would hurt. 

He pursed his lips, adopting a serious expression. “Like you.”

“You’re a regular wordsmith, you are.”

“I don’t know. You seem like a friend.”

She hummed a laugh, content and warm. “I’m sorry you’re homesick.”

“I’m sorry, too.” Fíli took a deep breath and sighed. “I’m sorry you miss your chickens.”

Bella grinned, staring out at the night with a comfort settling inside her. Odd, to feel companionship to a dwarf prince too clever for his own good, of all people. 

“Bella?”

“Hm?”

“I think those idiots in the Shire don’t know what they’re missing.”

She blinked, her throat strangely tight as she let her head fall to his shoulder. “Thank you.”

“And Bella?”

“Yes, Fíli?” she laughed.

“Can you keep this conversation between us?”

She straightened to look at him. “Of course. Have you…not talked about this with your brother?”

“A bit,” he said, discomfort in his eyes. “I think he’s more excited to be out here than anything, though. Didn’t feel right, ruining his fun.”

“Oh, Fíli—”

“Don’t ‘Oh, Fíli,’ me,” he said with a pointed look. “I just don’t want to worry him.”

She nodded, chewing on her lip. “I know your uncle is, ah, taciturn, but he might understand what you’re going through.” Whatever her feelings on Thorin, she knew him to be fond of his nephews. She could see it in the way he watched them closely, in how he spoke to them—firm, but never harsh, and always with an affection one couldn’t fake. 

“No,” Fíli said firmly. “I won’t bother Thorin with this.”

“I think you could.”

“But I won’t. It was hard enough to convince him to let me come. I don’t want him thinking I’ve gone soft two months in, that I’m just a child missing his mother.”

A stubborn, cold, arrogant dwarf, Thorin Oakenshield might be, but he would never think less of his nephew for being honest about his love for his mother. 

“There’s nothing wrong with missing your mother,” she murmured.

Fíli smiled at her gratefully. “I know. I’m not ashamed, I just…want to figure it out on my own.”

“All right. But if you need someone to talk to, you can talk to me if you want. I’m not sure I’d be any help—”

“You are.” He said it so easily, without any hesitation, that Bella had a hard time holding his gaze. He seemed to realize she was uncomfortable, and gave her a small smile. “I know you’re still getting used to us, and we to you, but I can’t imagine this quest without you. Not only because of your expert pony-handling.”

She snorted and shook her head, staring back out at the nighttime landscape.

The Shire had made her feel so alienated for so long, it was hard to hear someone express their pleasure at having her around. Nice, but hard, like a burnt tree sprouting new growth.

Soon after, she left Fíli, not wanting to give Thorin an excuse to storm after her, and not particularly interested in Fíli’s continued attempts to tease her for thinking he wanted to court her. Back at camp, the Company had split up into little groups, as they tended to do after supper. Bofur was playing something soft and sweet on his flute, Dori nodding off beside him, while Ori was signing animatedly with Bifur. Óin, Nori, and Bombur were playing some kind of dice game while Dwalin, Balin, Glóin, and Thorin discussed something on the other side of the fire in serious, low voices.

Thorin looked up as she approached, glowered at her, but she merely gave him a polite smile and picked up dishes along the way to clean. 

“That’s kind of you, lass,” Balin said casually, a knowing gleam in his eyes as he looked pointedly to Thorin.

“I’m a kind person.” She shot him a quirked brow. “And I wouldn’t want anyone to think I’m shirking my responsibilities to the Company by neglecting to help whenever I could.”

Dwalin snorted and Balin grinned while Glóin handed his bowl out slowly, as if she might hit him over the head with it. Thorin merely watched her with hard eyes, scowling as she passed. 

“Need help?” Kíli asked, perking up when she approached.

“Why, yes, Kíli, I would.” She gave him a wink, and grinned at the blank expression that crossed the young dwarf’s face. 

“Someone’s in a good mood,” Gandalf muttered. 

Bella shifted the bowls in her arms and plucked off his hat to settle on her head, her curls stopping it from enveloping her whole. “Can’t be you, surely,” she mused, ignoring his grumble of protest. “I’d hate to see what foul weather you’d bring onto our heads in one of _your_ good moods.”

Kíli chuckled as he followed, and as Bella cleaned the Company’s dishes, letting the young dwarf chat about his love of curved knives and his attempts to forge some back in Ered Luin, she felt lighter than she had in weeks. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While the line of Durin might be hopeless romantics, I also think they're all assholes. Lovable assholes, but assholes still <3


	9. Lost on the Way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Into The Wild" by LP](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wRSFQpExto&index=9&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-)

Thorin spent the majority of the weeks traveling from Bree in a state of tightly controlled annoyance. 

It should not have bothered him so much that on the morning after he and the hobbit had spoken of things no dwarf should ever speak of to someone outside kin, she had paid him less attention than she had Bifur. It should not have bothered him that she continued to be cordial and polite, conveniently slipping away whenever she saw him coming and refusing to meet his gaze. It should not have bothered him that Balin seemed to be perpetually smirking under his beard whenever he caught Thorin staring in the hobbit’s direction. 

It should not have bothered him, because he should never have had the conversation with her in the first place. He was a king, as she so often liked to remind him, and there had to be some separation between him and the woman who had joined his quest on a batty wizard’s whim. Technically, he was her employer, so the situation was further fraught, and while he might have family ties that complicated the quest, blood was thicker than any contract.

He did not need to know more about the hobbit than her ability to do her job, and so he stopped talking to her more than was absolutely necessary.

As the days went on and the Company fell into a happy rhythm, he and the burglar spent little time together, and that was for the best. If a part of him missed the little jibes and insults they’d traded back and forth before Bree, it was a small part, and overshadowed by the looming reality of their quest. If a part of him coveted the smiles she gave the rest of the Company, he ignored it, especially as she grew closer to his nephews. If a part of him burned with jealousy the day she found flowers tucked into her bedroll, smiled more brightly than she’d ever smiled at him, and kissed Fíli on the cheek, it was a silly part, better left unexamined and strangled before it grew into something more. His fears of an unrequited love on his nephew’s behalf were unfounded, anyone could see that now. But there was closeness, and fondness. And that, more than anything, surprised him. 

He was a king, and he would not be jealous of a youngling’s friendship with his burglar, especially not his nephew. 

They were well out of the Shire now, and beyond the happy valleys and grassy meadows, the harsher landscape drove home the danger they would truly begin to face. Wolves and other wild scavengers had crossed their path a few times, though they had yet to encounter any other people, be they human, elf, or dwarf. The East Road was usually well-tread this late into spring. It boded ill they’d seen no other sign of travelers. Darkness seemed to carry over the mountains before them, borne on hidden shadows and buried darkness. He tried not to indulge his more superstitious nature, but there was only so much he could ignore, and most of his faculties were busy with not staring overmuch at the halfling. 

Thorin grew anxious, and quiet, waiting for some little hiccup or misfortune to cross their path, if only to ease his mind. Something had to give, or he might go mad. He held himself taut, every day prepared for something to go wrong and throw this whole endeavor into chaos.

And so, a little over three weeks after they’d left Bree, he was ready when he heard the hobbit scream. 

His sword was out of his sheath before he’d started moving, falling into that place of cold fury that answered him whenever he prepared for a fight. His mind ran through the options he might encounter—a wild animal, perhaps, a fell beast come down from the cold wastes of Old Angmar, or something more sinister. _Orc,_ flashed in his heart, and his blood roared. Orcs roamed the Misty Mountains from time to time, treating with their cousins in the goblin tunnels still teeming with those foul creatures.

Thorin rounded a bend in a rock-face outside their camp, the midday sun shining clear overhead. He heard a splash and another scream, followed by a stream of such elegant and imaginative cursing, he might have laughed if his body weren’t coiled to strike whatever foe had threatened the hobbit.

He came to the river, and stopped, his heart relaxing at once.

Kíli stood on the bank, laughing his ass off and trying to shield himself from a barrage of pebbles being whipped at him from the center of the river where, waist-deep in the water and spluttering, the hobbit stood. 

She’d divested herself of her coat and dress, and was wearing only a fitted top of some kind around her chest and what must have been an underskirt, leaving her arms bare. 

“Bella, stop, I’m sorry—” Kíli broke off with a howl as one of her pebbles found his forehead, reeling back.

“Please, Bella,” Fíli said leisurely where he rung out his shirt a few yards down the river, unconcerned as Kíli began laughing again, “don’t kill my brother. I’m sure someone would miss him.”

“What is this?” Thorin bellowed, causing his nephews to jerk around. 

The hobbit only fumed, gathering up her sodden skirts and trying to extricate herself from the water. “What does it look like? Your idiot nephew threw me into the river,” she snapped with such venom he had to force himself not to step back. 

To his mounting horror, Thorin found his eyes fixed to her bare arms and the wealth of flesh below her neck. All of it was smooth and heaving, her pale skin freckled by the sun, and flushed. Her hair was plastered to the side of her face, a few sodden curls sticking up valiantly over her pointed ears. For some reason it made her eyes all the brighter, burning pricks of black light as she blinked them clear of water.

“What were you thinking, screaming like that?” he asked, latching onto something to distract himself from the tangle of emotions rioting in his chest, the heat curling in the base of his stomach. “Everything within a hundred miles will know where we are now.”

She stopped once out of the water, looking distinctly like a drowned chicken, and glared at him. “I apologize for my alarm, your majesty, but I don’t exactly have control over my reaction to being _dunked in a cold river_.”

“Uncle, it was my fault,” Kíli said as he jogged forward, a trickle of blood running down between his eyes from a small cut at his hairline. 

“I know that,” he said coldly, fighting his immediate guilt at seeing the boy’s expression fall. “You’re not a child, Kíli. Playing around in a river is beneath you.”

Fíli joined them then, frowning. “I think this is all—”

“And you,” Thorin said as he sheathed his sword. “I expected more of _you_.”

Fíli’s face hardened, and he looked down with a clenched jaw.

“All right,” the hobbit said, ringing out her hair and twisting it into a knot on her head, which only emphasized the soft slope of her neck, “it was just fun. Fun at my expense, but it was harmless.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” He gestured to his nephews’ things scattered beside the river. “Clean up and get back to camp, if you can swallow your childish antics long enough to remember that this is not a jaunt in the woods. You two are on watch tonight.”

He didn’t wait for their murmured assent before he turned and walked back to camp, trying to tamp down on his sudden rush of anger and discomfort. They were practically children, he shouldn’t expect them to act like battle-hardened soldiers. Even some of the older members of the Company played jokes on each other from time to time. He’d wound himself too tight the past few weeks, and though he meant everything he’d said, he should not have been so cold.

A few members of the Company stood hesitantly at the edge of camp, frozen in mid-charge to follow him. He met Dwalin’s raised brow, shook his head, and tried to force some calm into his rioting heart.

His burglar was an attractive woman. He’d known that. There was no reason to lose himself over a pleasing form, like he was some toddling lad who’d never touched a woman before.

“Hello, king under some moldy rocks, you want to stop for a moment?”

He tensed and turned around, stepping back when he found her nearly on top of him. He hadn’t even heard her follow.

She was breathing hard, only emphasizing the fact that she wore almost no clothes, face wrenched up in anger, her bare shoulders catching the sunlight, her faint freckles dancing like golden dust. Beyond the discomfort of seeing her so undone, he felt a small part of him relax. This fire was so much better than her indifference, even if it was directed at him.

“Was there a reason for being so harsh?” she asked.

Anger rose up quickly to swallow his relief, and he had to work not to shout. She had no right questioning how he spoke to his own kin. “I don’t need to justify myself to you.”

“Yes, far be it for me, a lowly hobbit, to require an answer to his majesty’s _overreaction_.”

“Your shrieking might have alerted someone trailing us,” he said, matching her tone despite his better judgement. “There are dangers in the wild, Miss Baggins, dangers you cannot hope to understand. You would know that if you had any knowledge of the world outside your Shire.”

“What dangers?” she shouted back, raising her hands in invitation. “What have we met except for a few wolves and errant wildcats who will most definitely be scared _off_ by my shrieking?”

“Keep your voice down,” he muttered.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” she shouted.

“I will tell you what _not_ to do if you endanger this Company.”

She laughed derisively, the sound grating and stamping out the last bits of his composure. “Unfortunately for you, Thorin Oakenshield, I am an equal member of this Company, _not_ your subject.”

“You are under my authority—”

“But not your protection. You made that very clear before we even set out on this venture. So if I am not under your protection and I am not your subject, I will not allow you to shout at me like I’m a child.”

“Then don’t act like one,” he shouted back, the dam breaking on his anger, the weeks of holding himself back spilling out in a torrent from his lips. “I told you this was not an idle foray into the wilds, and yet you seem to be treating it like an extended holiday. You balk at the simplest tasks, you collect flowers, you play in rivers. Your gentle hobbit ways will get you _killed_ , Miss Baggins, and I will not have you endanger the rest of the Company with your ignorance. If I tell you to be quiet, you will be quiet, and you will _thank_ me for saving your life. I will not accept anything less, and if you cannot comply, then you have no place in my Company. Decide now if you are up to the task, for I will not give you the chance again.”

They stood glaring at one another, neither one of them willing to break. Her eyes burned something inside him, turning his chest into a molten forge, and for a moment he thought she might actually attack him. Instead, she smiled, and he felt a finger of cold slide down his spine at the malice in it, at her smile which held more threat than any shout or curse.

“You know,” she muttered, finally dropping her voice and somehow pouring force into a whisper, “I thought I’d read you wrong, that you were more than some overbearing tyrant who enjoyed glowering at people and having your way. I thought that perhaps there was nuance to your character beyond feeding your overblown ego, that maybe you weren’t a prideful ass so hell-bent on his own success that he would bully any and everyone into line—that beneath the sneering superiority, you had some level of compassion for those of us who weren’t raised to believe that the rest of the world was supposed to fall in line and kiss the very ground you walked on. What a relief to find out I was right in thinking you nothing more than a _brute_ scared of not living up to his own enormous _majesty_.”

The words did not hurt so much as the intent behind them, but he felt their blow like a battering ram to his chest all the same.

She watched him long enough to see his reaction, to see the pain hit and take as she somehow chose the quickest path to his deepest insecurities. She stayed just long enough to smile grimly at the wild expression on his face, before she turned on her heel and stalked into the forest. 

He wanted to pull her back. He wanted to shake her. He wanted to deny her words and go back to the soft, whispered conversation which had been filling his mind these past three weeks. He wanted to rage at her for even thinking to speak to him so harshly. He wanted— 

“Where are you going?” he shouted.

“I’m going for a _shit_ ,” she roared, not bothering to look back at him. Her high voice filled the air and rang like a thundercloud. “And perhaps some peace and _quiet_. Maybe, if I’m lucky, a bear will come eat me and save me from the idiocy of dwarves.” She pitched her voice higher, laughing almost maniacally. “You hear that, bears? Prime hobbit flesh, ripe and ready for your convenient lunch. I won’t even struggle. I’ll just sit down like the _gentle little halfling_ I am and let you munch away, because I’m that _ignorant_ and _foolish._ ”

Thorin watched her until she disappeared, fixated on her infuriating tangle of wet curls, controlling the urge to run after her. 

That settled things, then. She _was_ trying to drive him mad. 

He turned, ignored the wide-eyed stares of his Company, and stalked to the other side of camp. 

_Frivolous, ridiculous halfling_ — 

“You want me to bring her back?” Dwalin asked, expression careful. 

“No. Let her wander off into the wilds. You heard her,” he said with a harsh smile, “she wants to be eaten by a bear. I think it only right we allow her to pursue her dream.”

“She’s got no clothes on,” Dwalin muttered with a frown. 

“Perhaps it is an old hobbit practice to better commune with her shrubs and flowers,” he said, going back to his task of repairing his jerkin where it had ripped on a tree the previous day. “We would not want to get in the way of her expressing her culture. On her head be the consequences of her tantrum. Let’s see how true the wizard’s glowing praise of her skills were.”

He felt the eyes of many on him, but he ignored them, trying in vain to thread his needle. 

“Uncle, you shouldn’t be mad with Bella,” Kíli said, running up to him with a bunch of clothes Thorin hated he recognized as belonging to the hobbit, his brother close behind. “I provoked her. It’s my fault she screamed.”

“Where is she?” Fíli asked, scanning the camp.

“I am not the burglar’s keeper.” He looked up with a stony expression, reining in his anger, forging it into a cold, molten fire in his throat. “Miss Baggins was hired for her discretion. Perhaps it is time she proved herself capable of remaining silent. If she wants to go wandering in the wood on her own, I will not stop her.”

Fíli’s eyes snapped back to him. “You let her go off on her own?”

“She says she is a woman full-grown. If she cannot handle herself alone in the forest, she cannot handle this quest.”

“So you’re going to let her get lost?” he nearly shouted, startling Thorin in his intensity. “She’s no warrior, uncle. What if she gets attacked by wolves?”

“She won’t,” he muttered, shaking his head. The hobbit had been right about that, at least. Any wildlife in the area had been scared off the moment she started shrieking. Anything else they would have seen signs of before now. Probably. Though, he didn’t much care one way or the other. A petty, small part of him wanted her to get herself hurt, though he dismissed the thought at once as the panic of her being truly hurt surfaced in his mind. “Let her make a fuss and come back when she’s hungry. Her appetite is even greater than her obstinance, after all.”

Fíli looked ready to argue, when Balin walked over and put a hand on his arm. “Let her be, lad. Miss Baggins clearly needs to work out her anger alone, otherwise she would have asked for company.”

Kíli sighed, sending a troubled glance into the woods. “I don’t like this,” he muttered. 

Fíli glared at Thorin. He held his nephew’s gaze, struck by how similar he looked to his sister, though his features were fairer and lighter. How the same feeling of frozen dread curdled in his stomach at the cold, steady look in Fíli’s eyes, blue, not brown, but every bit as potent.

“She doesn’t need to be alone,” Fíli said with conviction. “That’s the last thing she needs. You’d know that if you made an effort to talk to her.” He didn’t wait for a dismissal, but walked to the edge of camp, taking up a position on the border and staring into the trees. Kíli hesitated, looking between Thorin and his brother, but eventually followed, the hobbit’s dress still clutched in his hands. 

Thorin watched them, caught between hating the accusation in their eyes, and the desire to remain firm. He went back to his mending, telling himself if the hobbit didn’t return in a few hours, he would go out and find her himself. 

He did not let himself acknowledge that Fíli was entirely right. Thorin had guessed as much that day on the little wall at the edge of Bree, that there was something in Bella Baggins which had spent too much time on her own. Something that echoed Thorin’s own aching loneliness.

“I’m sure you all have things to do,” he called sharply, feeling the eyes of the Company on him. 

“You know, young Fíli has a point,” Balin said mildly, leaning on a tree next to Thorin. 

“I have no interest in getting to know the burglar beyond her ability to fulfill the duties required of her.” His old friend’s silence was pointed. Thorin looked up with an arched brow. “Is there something else you wished to advise me on?”

Balin hummed and shrugged. “You are my king and to your whims I will bow, Thorin.” His eyes grew sharp. “I will also tell you when you’re being a boorish ass. Talk to her,” he breezed over Thorin’s clenched jaw, “work out whatever it is that’s got you both wound so tight, and move on.” He shook his head and ambled off, throwing over his shoulder, “Honestly, you’re too old for such nonsense, and she’s too smart.”

Thorin forced himself not to respond and stabbed into his jerkin, nearly snapping his needle in half.

Damn the interfering amusement of old friends. Damn the earnest concern of his nephews. And damn the pigheaded stubbornness of _hobbits_.

He would let her wander for a few hours on her own. Even _she_ couldn’t get into that much trouble. Maybe she would find some perspective and civility in the woods. 

And maybe he would calm down enough to talk to her without shouting.

 

~  ✧ ~

 

At some point in her fuming through the woods, Bella had found a stick and begun to hit each and every stone which reminded her of Thorin Oakenshield’s head. She didn’t care that she was acting like a child, storming off into the woods in only her underthings. If he was going to treat her like one, perhaps she should indulge him. 

“ _There are dangers in the wilds_ ,” she muttered, picking up a rock and chucking it into a tree. “There are as many dangers under my _skirts_ as there are in these damn woods.” 

A flock of birds erupted from the branches, and she faltered in guilt. She watched them fly up into the sky for a time, wishing she had wings so she could leave the ground and soar away from the Company and never have to look at a stinking pony again.

She scowled, continued on into the brush where she thought their camp was located. “Didn’t mean that, Myrtle.” 

A violent humming drew her attention to a nearby beehive, a collection of them, rather, and she winced. It would have been just her luck to smash a beehive and bring a whole colony down onto her head. Wouldn’t that be marvelous, to walk back into camp not only tired and roughed up by the bushes, but with a face full of bee stings?

She didn’t know how long she’d been gone, but her clothes were nearly dry so it must have been at least an hour. If only she’d had the foresight to put her dress on before charging after Thorin, she might not have earned herself so many shallow scratches in her blind stumbling through the woods. 

Her corset was stained with sap and dirt and red goo, the remains of a particularly feisty berry bush. A place on her arm itched something fierce, no doubt the gift of poison oak, but she paid it no mind, trying to hold onto her anger as long as she could before returning to camp.

If the tyrant wanted to drive her away, well, she wouldn’t let him have the satisfaction. 

A trill of birdsong echoed through the air above her, and she froze, wondering why it sounded so familiar, and why it sounded so urgent. She stepped carefully through a bank of bushes to find herself in a little hollow shaded entirely from the sun. The thought ran through her mind that it was a curious place, and that the ring in the center looked a bit like a fire pit, before the ground shook under her feet, and a huge, monstrous hand closed around her entire body.

Whether it was the scolding she’d received from Thorin, or the sheer, primal fear of being lifted clean into the air, she did not scream, nor make so much as a sound. 

“Hello there,” a deep, rumbling approximation of a voice said. “You must be the little thing stomping about the forest and shouting.”

Bella’s eyes went so wide she thought they might pop out of her skull as she twisted in midair and found herself looking into the ugliest face she’d ever seen. Her mind went blank, her body froze, and she nearly laughed at the irony of it all. 

Her bad luck had a sense of irony. Clutched in the hand of a monster. She should have taken the bees.

“Oi, Bert,” the thing said, nudging what looked like a misshapen mound of rock to his left, “look what I found.”

“You didn’t find it,” the other one said, squinting at her where she hung upside down. “It just stumbled in front of the cave. What happened to its voice?”

Somewhere in the back of her mind, a word surfaced, a word which had previously been attached to a race of monsters belonging to the stories Gandalf used to tell her. Before she could figure out what that word was, the thing shook her so hard her teeth clacked together.

“Little thing,” it said, “are you dead?”

“You killed it, Tom,” another voice called behind the two staring at Bella, from what looked to be a cave set far into the hollow. “Pity. Probably all tense now too. You should have just knocked it over the head like I told you.”

The thing holding her sighed, clenching its hand around her so tight she thought she might burst like a peach. “Oh well. I thought it sounded kinda funny. Best just throw it in the pot, then.”

Bella found her voice, and the word she’d been searching for burst from her lips. “ _Troll_.”

All three stopped and looked at her. 

Heart racing so fast she thought she might faint, she continued, “O-oh, my, you’re not _trolls_ , are you? How lovely! I’ve heard such wonderful stories about you!”

The one holding her smiled, a picture so grotesque she had to bite down on her lip to stop it from trembling. “It’s still alive! What luck!”

“Yes, yes, I am still alive,” she stammered, “and _I’m_ the lucky one, sir, to be able to meet you in _person_. Well, I am the happiest little thing alive!”

The troll to the left of the one holding her— _Bert_ , her mind supplied in a morbid kind of assistance—frowned in confusion. “What? Have you heard of us?”

“Oh, of course! Who hasn’t heard of the great Troll Heroes of Eriador, Bert, Tom, and,” she fumbled, realizing she hadn’t heard the last one’s name.

“Bill,” Tom finished for her.

“Yes, yes, _Bill_. You three are legend!”

“Really?” The one presumably called Bill said as he trudged out of the cave. Somehow he was larger than the other two, who could have easily squished even Dwalin between two of their monstrous fingers. “I didn’t realize little things had stories about us.”

“It’s lying,” Bert said with a snarl. “It didn’t know your name.”

“I know his name! It’s Bill,” she said with what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “But, what are you three doing _here?”_ She tried to remember anything she could about trolls, hill-trolls, presumably, as they seemed a bit more intelligent than their cave or mountain cousins. “Don’t you usually stick to the north?”

“How’d you know where we came from?” Bert asked skeptically.

“She told you,” Tom said with a sigh, lowering her so low to the ground her hair brushed the dirt before he lifted her up again. “ ’Cause of stories.”

“Tom’s right,” she said, earning another hideous smile. 

“We’ve been following those dwarves,” Bill said. “They’ve got ponies. We love ponies. Much better than them orcs.”

“Ain’t you traveling with them?” Tom asked, lifting her up to its eyes. 

“With the dwarves?” she scoffed, shoving down her fear as her brain clicked into place at the mention of orcs. _Orcs_ , in these woods? “No, no, of course not. Do I look like a dwarf?”

Tom flipped her over, and she winced as all the blood rushed from her head. “I dunno. You’re smaller, scrawnier.”

“It ain’t wearing the same clothes,” Bert said with a shrug. “Must be something else.”

“Yes, exactly, I’m something else,” Bella said. “What did you say about orcs?”

“Coming down from the mountains, they have, going through the foothills, looking for something. Riding them nasty wargs of theirs.”

Tom scowled. “They’re even worse than them dwarves. Taste worse too.”

“You ain’t seen the orcs?” Bill asked.

Bella knew she should be afraid, and that her body was so tense she might snap in Tom’s crushing grip. But there was a clarity to her mind that allowed her to speak, almost as if she were able to separate the half of her shrieking in terror from the other, more logically-inclined half. “No, no, I’ve been following the dwarves, same as you.”

“Why?” Bill rumbled. 

“Oh, because I hate them and I was hoping to give them a bit of mischief!”

The trolls looked at each other in surprise. 

“Dwarves are smelly and rude,” she continued. If they could only set her down, she might be able to get away. _Keep talking, Bright Eyes._ “Horrible, nasty people. _Yeuch_. The world would be better off without them. Though they do taste very good.” 

At that, Tom brightened. “They’re all right. The ponies are better. We were gonna pick them off tonight and kill the dwarves for later.”

Dread hit the bottom of her stomach. “Well, I can understand why. And I’m sure you know all about the proper preparation for them so as not to get sick? You’re so clever, you three—whom I’ve heard so much about. You must know all about the parasites.”

The trolls exchanged worried looks. “Parasites?”

“The parasites that will give you indigestion if you don’t cook dwarves the right way,” Bella said, worrying her arms might start to lose circulation if Tom held her much longer. “You can’t let them run around too much before you cook them, or the parasites will get nervous. You also have to keep them alive until the last, or they turn poisonous. It’ll be worth it, trust me. Best thing you’ll ever eat.” _Sweet Shire, what the fuck am I saying?_   She smiled wider as they seemed reluctant to agree. “Much better than ponies, relaxed dwarf is.”

“How would a little thing like you know that?” Bert asked.

“I used to work for trolls in the Shire,” she said, grabbing for anything to keep them talking. “They’d get me to run around and lure dwarves to them.”

“Oh?” Tom asked, smiling. He turned to the others and whispered, “Maybe we should stick her on a leash or something, have her do that for us tonight.”

“Why can’t we just eat her now?” Bill asked in genuine confusion. 

“Because if you eat me now, you’ll have to sneak past the dwarves,” she said quickly, voice breaking. “You could just pick off the ponies, of course, but dwarves love their ponies fiercely and they’d come after you.”

“We can handle some dwarves,” Bert growled.

“Of course you can, I would never suggest otherwise,” Bella agreed enthusiastically. “But you would need to fight them, and then you’d have to kill them, and deal with the parasites…” She trailed off with a worried look on her face.

“No, I don’t want you lot stinking up the cave,” Bill said firmly. “Right, little thing, you bring them here tonight, and then we’ll decide whether or not to eat you, too.”

“I can’t bring them tonight, they’ll all be asleep!”

“Thought you said we’d have to fight them.”

“Dwarves fight in their sleep, didn’t you know?” _They probably do_ , she thought, thinking about Dwalin and Glóin’s insistence on sleeping with their axes clutched to their chests. “They have to eat rocks before bed to weigh them down, but it doesn’t help if they hear someone taking their ponies.” Somewhere in the woods beyond this hollow, wherever he’d run off to that morning, she imagined Gandalf laughing at the ridiculousness she was managing to pull out of her ass. “And sleeping dwarf is just as bad for the parasites as dead dwarf. Sometimes even worse.”

The trolls murmured to each other, sounding like rocks and mud mixed together. “You have to bring the dwarves back here,” Bill said, pointing to the ground at his feet. “Cause we can’t go into the sun, you know.”

“Yes, I know that,” Bella said, mind whirring with the new information. She’d thought it was only a rumor that trolls turned to stone in the sunlight, but if she could lure them out somehow, maybe even to the edge of the clearing, she might be able to do something with the bushes… “I will bring your dwarves back here soon,” she said firmly as the hint of a plan glimmered in the back of her mind. “You won’t need to wait until tonight to eat, gentlemen. I can promise you that.”

She had to get out of this hollow and warn the dwarves about the orcs, and perhaps the trolls, if she couldn’t figure out a way to dispatch them before she left.

If a not-so-small part of her wanted to figure all of it out before she got back to camp if only to see the look on Thorin Oakenshield’s face when she told him, well, who could blame her? 

Tom grinned with excitement, set her on the ground, and Bella surged into action.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one took so long to get up, guys. I've been in a weird head space the past few days. <3 Thank you for your patience, and all the lovely comments!


	10. Aim for the Sun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Wild" by Adam Jones](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW-gC2FbGtE&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-&index=10)

Thorin had sat in the middle of camp for three hours with no sign of Bella, letting the last of his anger drain away only to be replaced by a sick dread forming in the pit of his stomach. The hobbit should have come back by now. The sun had dipped slowly lower in the sky, taunting him with its passing and her continued absence. He had listened to the rest of the Company murmur and cast nervous looks into the woods, until finally he could take it no more. 

He rose, readied his weapons, though he hoped he would not need them, and called sharply, “Fíli, Kíli, Dwalin, come with me to fetch the hobbit. The rest of you stay here.”

He silenced the immediate protests with a hard look, and set off into the woods. 

Fíli walked at his side, silent and fuming. The boy had been staring out into the woods for the better part of an hour, holding his tongue. So, the obstinance of his line ran true in Fíli. Thorin had wondered when that would turn up. 

“Can you track her?” Dwalin muttered, concern showing in his hard eyes. 

Thorin frowned. He couldn’t, which made this whole situation worse. “She didn’t exactly go in stealth.” 

Fíli ground his teeth. “She’s small. You’d be surprised how easily she might slip into the woods without a trace.”

“It might help if you all shut up,” Kíli said from the front, sharp eyes roving the ground. He turned abruptly and pointed. “A bit of her skirt.”

Thorin followed his nephew, trusting to his sight and senses. Kíli had proved himself to be a natural tracker when Thorin had taken him on hunting trips in the Blue Mountains. He just hoped he could find hobbits as well as he could boars and hares. 

They walked for half an hour with no sign of her. It was still a while until sundown, but he could not banish thoughts of Bella falling into a hole and twisting her ankle, getting torn apart by a pack of wolves, or getting captured by bandits. If her stubbornness had gotten her hurt, and his pride had prevented him from finding her… 

Thorin could no longer bear the silence and the concern shredding at his chest. “I’m sorry,” he murmured to Fíli.

Fíli looked at him in surprise, which quickly faded to anger. “You shouldn’t apologize to me.”

“I intend to apologize to Miss Baggins as soon as we find her,” Thorin said, swallowing his pride with difficulty. “I should never have shouted at you, however, or your brother. It was unkind of me.”

Fíli looked away, walking forward slowly to follow Kíli. “I know why you did. We shouldn’t have been making so much noise.”

“I can hardly fault—”

“Quiet,” Kíli whispered in front of them, staring unfocused into the trees. 

Thorin heard nothing, and only then registered how strange it was that no animals or birds had been making noise. 

A loud thud vibrated through the earth, followed quickly by a distant roar which might have belonged to an animal or a falling mountain. 

“The fuck was that?” Dwalin muttered, drawing his axes.

The ground shook again. A crash of wood, and a piercing shriek. 

Thorin’s heart leapt into his throat as he sprinted forward. Breaking through a dense patch of forest, they all skidded to a halt as another roar shook the trees, this time much louder and closer. But it wasn’t a roar—it was a low, growling voice, and it said, “Come here, you little _liar_.”

Of course. There was only one person he knew would could inspire such frustrated malice. 

Thorin pushed past Kíli and Fíli, leapt over a copse choked with tangled bushes, and came face to face with a— _troll_. He raised his sword, readying a strike, only to realize the troll had not moved.

Dwalin let out a battle cry as he burst through the brush at Thorin’s side, skidding to a halt in front of a second troll, also frozen in the middle of a trampled clearing.

“Get it off, get it _off_ ,” that rumbling voice called, followed by more thudding and crashing and, if Thorin was hearing correctly, buzzing. “I’m going to squish you into jelly.”

“Come on and try, then, you great, stupid _lump!”_

Thorin exhaled in relief as he heard Bella’s voice, fast approaching the other side of the clearing. He stepped between the trolls just as she burst through a thicket of bushes, hair wild, skirts in tatters, and ran straight into him. 

He caught her easily enough, though holding onto her was like trying to hold onto a flock of angry birds. “Bella, _Bella,_ ” he said as she started hitting him with a thick branch.

She looked up, nearly cracking him in the chin with her skull, and stilled. Her eyes widened. “Don’t just stand there, you useless—”

“Where are you, little thing?” the troll cried, its footsteps shaking the ground so severely that the troll next to Dwalin gave a precarious lurch.

Bella growled something under her breath, only to shove her hand around Thorin’s waist and fumble at the back of his pants. He froze, mind going blank with the feeling of her arms wrapped around him. 

She pulled back, turned around, and charged toward the sound of the troll.

He had sense enough to at least catch her arm this time. “What do you—,” was all he managed, before she jabbed her elbow into his face—not hard enough to stun him, but hard enough to loosen his grip to let her slip away. 

“Over here, you fat dung-heap,” she screamed, darting back into the bushes. 

Thorin blinked against the bright star of pain in the middle of his forehead as through the bushes came the troll, with Bella dancing between its legs, swinging what he now realized was _his_ dagger.

The troll roared and hopped in pain as she sliced into its ankle, coming down on its knee almost directly on top of her before she jerked out of the way. It tried to reel back into the bushes, but as soon as it hit the sunlight, its skin smoked and bristled, cracking and breaking into dust as if all the water were being drawn from it. After a tense second of horrible grinding stone, it went perfectly still. 

In the silence that followed, Thorin realized that the buzzing he heard was coming from a beehive shoved onto the troll’s calcified head. 

After a long, weighty pause, Bella stepped over the troll’s leg and into the center of the clearing. She braced a hand on its shoulder, trembling as she heaved for breath. “Ten more minutes,” she muttered, glaring at Thorin. “You couldn’t have waited _ten_ more minutes?”

His mind scrambled for a way to understand the sight of her standing in the midst of three frozen trolls. Now that she was still, he could see the full extent of her injuries. Shallow cuts ran along her arms and upper chest, hair tangled like a bird’s nest behind her head. She had a bruise forming under her left eye and a cut through her lips. Her skirts were ripped to shreds and a wide gap was slashed across her stomach, though there was no blood staining the cloth. 

He blinked, sheathed his sword, and unclenched his jaw. “You stumbled into a troll’s nest,” he said, his voice low and even as panic and anger and relief surged for dominance in his mind.

She raised her chin, only serving to exaggerate a web of small red welts along her neck which he assumed were bee stings. “I might have, yes.”

He controlled the flash of outrage that warmed his face. Or he tried to. “And how did you manage to do that?”

Her eyes flashed with a wild, frenzied defiance, and he thought he wouldn’t have been surprised if she simply erupted into flame. 

“Well done, lass,” Dwalin said, stepping forward and staring appreciatively at the trolls. “How’d you lure them from their cave? I assume it’s close by?”

“I convinced them I was going to help cook you.”

“Bella, you’re brilliant,” Kíli laughed, eyes wide, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. “Absolutely insane, but fucking _brilliant_.” 

“Yes, let’s encourage her,” Thorin said before he could stop himself. 

A vein pounded in her temple as her hands clenched into fists. “ _You_ —”

Fíli, to his credit, went straight to Bella, ignoring her wrath. “Are you hurt?”

“Of course she is,” Thorin said loudly, anger finally winning out as he stalked forward, pulling off his coat and handing it out to her. She was shaking like a leaf in a brisk wind, leaning heavily on her right foot with her left held gingerly in the air. “I’m surprised there’s anything left of you.”

“Don’t do that. I don’t need your damn coat,” she snapped, shoving him away. She gasped, wincing as she pressed a hand to her side. “I’m fine.”

A familiar chuckle made them all tense. “You are better than that, my dear.”

Thorin looked over her head to see Gandalf standing with a pleasant smile next to a cave.

Bella jerked around, and Thorin took advantage of her distraction to drape his coat over her shoulders, fighting the urge to pick her up before she collapsed. She didn’t protest, as if she only had enough control to focus her anger on one person at a time.

“Where did you come from?” she said harshly. 

“I’ve been watching you for the past few minutes.” His brow lifted as his eyes twinkled. “I wanted to see how you might best them. Ingenious, with the beehives, by the way, though I am sure the bees are less than thrilled.”

“You just stood there and _watched_ —,” Thorin started in a rage, before Bella cut him off.

“The past few _minutes?”_ she shrieked, so loudly the noise almost deafened Thorin. She bent and straightened with surprising speed, throwing a chunk of fallen beehive into the wizard’s face. It hit with a squelch as he floundered back. “Go stuff yourself, you moth-eaten crow-muncher!”

Dwalin and Kíli burst into laughter as the wizard wiped chunks of honey from his face and batted away angry bees. 

Thorin might have smiled at the wizard’s shock, if he wasn’t watching Bella’s small form tremble with the effort of keeping herself upright. 

“Fíli,” he murmured, “take Miss Baggins back to camp. Have Óin see to her wounds.”

Bella turned around, murder in her wild, unfocused eyes. 

Thorin knew that look. He’d seen it in the eyes of warriors at the end of a battle, adrenaline fueling their rage, keeping them on their feet long-past what they should have been able to endure. She might have escaped death by the skin of her teeth, but she would collapse soon. 

“I’m—,” she started.

He bent to look her directly in the eyes, catching her arm gently when she tipped back, holding her upright. “Do not argue with me right now. You are hurt, and you are tired. I will not have you faint because you are too stubborn and angry with me to see reason.” He held her gaze, almost impressed by the defiance still flashing in her black eyes. “Please,” he added softly, unable to keep a bit of his thinly-veiled panic from entering his voice. 

She hadn’t just fallen into a hole. She’d fallen into a hole of _trolls_. 

Her eyes didn’t soften, nor did her jaw unclench, but she sagged and muttered, “The trolls mentioned orcs scouting the hills.”

He tensed, every line in his body bending to her words. “What?”

“Orcs looking for something, or someone,” she said. Her voice was still hard, but her anger faded to something closer to fear. Her lips trembled as her eyes flashed between his. “Riding wargs.”

He held her gaze long enough to steady himself in her dark eyes, to put aside his anger and fear, and settle into that cold calm he knew too, too well. 

Dwalin cursed and Gandalf grumbled as he wiped the last of the honey from his cheek.

“Fíli, Kíli,” Thorin said, reluctant to look away from Bella in case she collapsed, “ready the Company to leave at once.”

Fíli moved in to pick her up without prompting. She almost began struggling, as if she couldn’t help but make things as difficult as she could, until he whispered something in her ear, and she stilled. 

Kíli’s face was grim as he said, “What are you going to do?”

“Search the cave,” Thorin forced himself to turn as Fíli jogged out of sight, Kíli following close after. “If hill-trolls are coming down from the north, I want to know why.”

“I say,” Gandalf grumbled as Thorin walked past, “that was uncalled for.”

“I say she could have stabbed you in the heart and more, if she liked.” Thorin said coldly, his anger a deep, resounding thing, hardly able to bear the sight of the wizard. “You _watched_ as she took on three trolls on her own. She could have _died_. A hardened warrior might have fled at the mere sight of them.”

“And yet she didn’t,” Gandalf said, sounding entirely unconcerned with the near-death of someone who considered him the only family she had left. He knocked his staff on the side of the cave, and a light shone in the gnarled twigs at its end. “Had she been in any real danger, I would have stepped in.”

Thorin swallowed his retort, burying it for now, though he had half a mind to throw something at the wizard himself, like his sword, when Dwalin called from further inside the cave, “Fair bit of finery in here.”

They searched the cave quickly. Thorin tried to focus on the new threat riding toward him on clawed feet. _Orcs._ He’d been wanting something to break the monotonous journey and take his mind off the halfling. Mahal damn him, but he’d gotten his wish.

 

~  ✧ ~

 

Bella sat in the center of camp as Óin fussed over her, grumbling something in dwarvish she suspected was not a glowing tribute to her clever mind. If she’d been a different hobbit, more prudish and delicate, or less likely to collapse from fatigue and stress, she might have objected to his rather clinical searching over of her body for any injuries beyond the ones he could plainly see. 

As it was, most of the Company were averting their eyes as Óin helped her out of her ripped and ruined underthings and into the dress Kíli had deposited on a rock with purposefully closed eyes. She let the old dwarf move her limbs and smear ointment over her neck and chest, biting her tongue against any sound as he examined her ribs, thankfully only bruised. She’d managed to duck away from Tom the troll’s angry swipe when she jumped away that first time, but not fast enough to clear the blow entirely. 

Her ankle, however, was a different matter. 

“Sprained, most like,” he said loudly to Fíli, who was standing over her now that she was clothed with a hard expression which might have rivaled his uncle’s. 

“Can she walk?”

“I should think she’s just tired,” the old dwarf said with a scowl. “Be back to chattering away with a good—”

“Walk,” Fíli cut him off, miming the action with emphasized steps of his own. “Can she _walk?”_

“Got something up your pants, lad?”

Bella snorted. 

“You think this is funny?” Fíli asked, eyes pinning her with their concern.

“I do, actually,” she said, voice lacking any real bite. 

She felt cold, like her veins had bled all their heat in the fight with the trolls and she was left with a chill that rattled her bones. It was the only reason she’d pulled Thorin’s coat back on after putting on her dress. That, and it was marvelously soft, lined in fur and padded, much finer than Fíli’s. It smelled nice too, sweet and woody, almost spicy. Though she did her best not to notice its smell as she huddled into it and tried to stop shaking. 

Fíli’s eyes tightened. “I’m going to assume that’s a ‘no’ on the walking, then.”

She held her tongue, not wanting to fight with him, not having the energy to fight with anyone. She dreaded Thorin’s return, knowing exactly what he would say to her—that she was stupid and reckless for getting herself into such a mess. 

And she was, of course. Storming off into the woods had been foolhardy at best, deadly at worst. But she didn’t regret it.

Those trolls might have done more harm that night if they’d taken the Company unawares, and now they knew about the orcs roaming the hills. In a way, it was lucky she’d stumbled onto them when she did. She repeated this to herself silently as Óin wrapped her ankle, as Fíli stood over her like a statue, as Kíli shot her worried looks and paced, as the rest of the Company broke camp and readied for departure. 

Her eyelids were starting to droop shut by the time Thorin, Gandalf, and Dwalin returned, carrying more weapons than they’d arrived with. She drew herself up, blinking away her weariness and trying not to wince as her whole body seemed to cry out in one desperate surge of protest. 

Thorin cast a look over the camp, over the hills beyond them and into the woods at their back. “Any sign?”

Balin answered. “No. I have to ask, Thorin, are we really going to take the word of a few hill-trolls—”

Dwalin stalked forward and threw a wicked-looking blade onto the ground at Balin’s feet. “There’s fresh blood on it too.”

Bella stared at the sword as the Company broke into a frenzy, some wanting to stay put, some wanting to leave, some not wanting to do anything but were adamant about expressing their fear nonetheless. 

It was horrific, jagged and curved like a scythe, made of black iron. Barbed points jutted out from the tip, almost serrated, as if to more easily rip through flesh. She was familiar with swords and axes from watching the dwarves care for their weapons. But beyond her little knives, she’d never really seen tools of death up close before. 

All at once the reality of their quest slammed into her. There were foes beyond the dim-witted trolls or wolves in the shadows of the woods who would not let her talk her way out of death, but would gut her as soon as look at her. Thorin had told her people might try to stop them, but she hadn’t really believed him. It all made sense to her in a distant, logical way, but she’d never _felt_ it. Assassins and orcs and dragons belonged in the fantasies of her childhood, not the bright sunlight. Trolls were just a funny story to scare children. Heart pounding in her throat, she felt her injuries anew, remembered the crushing grip of the troll, the frantic beating of her heart as she ran for her life. How close had she been to death, and she hadn’t even realized? 

For the first time in her safe little life, she felt like someone who belonged in the Shire, in a world of soft grass and gardens, where the deadliest thing one might find was a well-placed pebble to scare off rabbits.

_What have I gotten myself into?_

“Bella?”

Gentle hands cupped her cheek. Pale blue eyes met hers. For a moment, she thought Thorin had knelt before her, but the face was younger, rimmed in pale gold, not black. She drew a deep, shaking breath, and exhaled. 

“I’m fine.” She nodded, and Fíli’s hands fell. “I’m fine, Fíli.”

She glanced up, heart hammering as her fear compensated for her fatigue, and found Thorin watching her. She saw fear in his eyes too, and something that looked strangely like longing, before they shuttered and his face hardened. 

“Did the trolls say how many orcs there were?” 

She swallowed, tried to will some steadiness into her voice. “No. I—I didn’t have time to ask.”

He nodded, turned to Gandalf, whose eyes were unfocused as he stared into the distance, mumbling under his breath. 

“Are you speaking to someone, Greybeard,” Thorin said in a low, menacing tone, “or have you finally taken leave of your senses?”

Gandalf’s eyes sharpened, and the voice that came from him then was unfamiliar to Bella in all the years she’d known him. It was low and hard, and rang with an urgency that set her nerves to riot. “I should hope not, Thorin Oakenshield, for that would bode very ill for you.”

A crash and a cry from the woods startled them all into motion. Even Bella lurched back as a carriage drawn by— 

She blinked rapidly, wondering if she’d started hallucinating. 

A carriage drawn by _rabbits_ larger than any she’d seen before swept into the clearing, upon which sat a human wearing an abundance of brown rags and a rumpled, yet pointed, brown hat. 

The dwarves drew weapons at once, both Thorin and Dwalin moving in front of Fíli and Bella.

The old man blinked watery eyes, surveyed them all, and turned to Gandalf. “These must be your dwarves, then.” He paused, smiled as he locked eyes with Bella through the tangle of thick dwarven thighs. “And a hobbit! You’ve been holding out on me, old friend. Yavanna bless me, I don’t see as many of you as I would like these days. Not like I used—”

“I would be happy to introduce you all later, Radaghast,” Gandalf said sharply, drawing a long, shining sword and turning to the forest where this Radaghast had come from. “For now, I think our time would be better spent running.”

“Quite right, quite right,” he said with a distracted grin. “I’ll draw them off. Try not to bellow too loudly, now, or you’ll spoil the chase!” With a surge of energy and a displacement of air, the rabbits sprang into the forest once more.

Bella felt her mind blur as Gandalf barked orders to them. Someone lifted her into the air, and she didn’t even have the energy to argue as sharp words were exchanged close to her. A deep voice said her name, but when she turned her head in surprise, Thorin was gone. 

She was moving through underbrush and trees, which suddenly, or perhaps slowly, she couldn’t tell, broke into open moors and sparse grass. A shape danced across her vision, Kíli shooting arrows at shadows on the rocks above her. She hunched in on herself as the pain drew a thick veil over her senses. Time warped and waned. Gandalf’s cry echoed into her ears and she had the odd sensation of feeling like she should have said something in reply. More cries of familiar voices—she blinked to clear her vision and saw Bofur’s face etched in lines of terror. She tried to count her heart beats, but she kept losing track. 

The light went out behind her closed eyes as she fell, held tight to someone’s chest.

“—put you down, Bella, I’m sorry,” Fíli said into her ear, and then she was still, sitting against cold rock. Her body throbbed in a dull ache. Her head pounded. Sound rushed around her, clanging of metal, cries of battle. The rank stench of iron threaded through her nostrils and she covered her mouth with soft leather and silk-lined fur. 

A jagged shriek tore through her fog, and she looked up. Fíli was fighting with something horrible, something foul, a body crossed with ragged scars and wearing blood-stained rags. The wall at her back was solid as she pushed herself against it, trying to get away. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew she should help, that she was useless just sitting on the ground as the Company fought orcs around her. 

Her eyes danced beyond Fíli as if pulled by an invisible thread, settled on another orc, bow and arrow trained on the young prince. 

Bella moved before she registered the urge. She might have said Fíli’s name, or perhaps she just cried out in an attempt to warn him. He sliced into the orc at his side, turned just in time to see her grab his arm. His mouth opened as the arrow released from the bow, eyes wide with confusion. 

Bella pulled Fíli aside in the same moment the arrow found its mark. The impact sent her staggering back, into gentle hands. Silence fell over her as she looked down.

The arrow sprouted from her shoulder, black and thick, fletched in feathers that looked more like broken iron. 

She felt the pain rush toward her like a raging river. Black claws raked at her shoulder, rending flesh and dragging up something cold, something borne of a malicious, whispered promise, in their wake. Her vision went red, then black, and then she felt nothing at all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for another cliffhanger guys... Also, obviously a bit of a departure from canon. 
> 
> Love you <3


	11. Collect Your Scars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["The Crooked Kind" by Radical Face](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsLccI7_MbA&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-&index=11)

For hours they had sprinted across the moors, chased by wargs and the foul riders on their backs, crying in their harsh tongue and sending memories like sharp shards of metal into Thorin’s mind. For hours he had swallowed the ragged stream of panic sliding down his spine whenever he caught sight of Bella held in Fíli’s arms. For hours the wizard had led them on a twisting path through crags and hills, eyes distant and burning with an unknowable drive. For hours they had fled, and when they reached the cleft in the rock, driven down into the caves, followed by orcs, pinned and holed in like rabbits for slaughter, Thorin had felt the first stirrings of dread.

He was trapped in a hole with enemies outside, inside, and every swing of his new elvish blade was a cutting through time to reveal Azanulbizar, and the endless horde of monsters who had barred him from yet another home for his people. 

Thorin watched the arrow fly toward Fíli, his sister-son, his heir, and thought of Dís, of the moment he would, again, see her fierce pride falter and crack. His gaze ran along the shaft of the black arrow, and saw only her eyes fill with the bleak madness of their line, a madness of grief, and loss. 

He surged forward on instinct, to place himself between the arrow-head and the closest thing he would ever come to a son—only to see Bella get there before him. 

He watched her jerk back, saw the black arrow hit its mark, and for a moment he felt only relief that Fíli stood tall and firm. 

A relief that was drowned quickly in bone-deep horror.

“Bella, _no_ ,” Fíli cried, grabbing hold of her before she crumpled to the ground. “No, no, no—”

Thorin ripped the knife from his belt, the same Bella had taken from him hours ago to bring down the troll, and sent it flying toward the orc who had fired the arrow—pale, he realized with a jolt, though it was not the same. It _could_ not be the same _._ The creature dodged the killing blow, taking it in his arm instead of his chest, and snarled. Before Thorin could pursue, it scrambled back up the rocky incline, and was gone from his sight. 

The sounds of fighting died down, followed by a horn he did not recognize. Clear, trumpeting—not made by an orc. He registered dimly, in that clear haze between fighting and peace, the familiarity of such a horn, but he could not tear his eyes from Bella, clutched in his nephew’s hands and suddenly looking much, much too small. 

Beside him, Dwalin lowered his axes. “Oh, lass,” he murmured, voice low, barely more than a whisper. 

That gentle disbelief and pride, the _gratitude_ , from his _akrâgkharm_ who loved Fíli in his own, stubborn way, nearly made his knees buckle.

Thorin remained in that sharp place between rage and silence, holding onto that fierce serenity that came to him during battle. He grabbed that calm and held it close, anything to keep from the yawning void opening up in the pit of his stomach, and stalked forward. 

Fíli’s hands were shaking as he held her up, his blue eyes wide and cutting in their plea. “Uncle, I don’t… I didn’t—”

He sheathed his sword, the sword he had found in the troll-hoard and which meant little more to him than a butcher’s knife, and knelt. Pulling back her coat as gently as he could manage— _his_ coat, she was still wearing it, the stubborn—he exhaled as he saw the arrow had hit a few inches above her heart. Her eyes were closed, her skin pale and covered in sweat, but there was a pulse in her neck, and her eyes flicked behind her lids. 

“She’s alive,” he breathed. Of course she was. She was stronger than she looked. She was stronger than she had any right to be. His relief was short-lived, however, as he saw black veins trailing up her neck, pulsing like worms under her skin, leeching the soft blush from her skin and making her freckles look like dirt against bone. “Gandalf,” he shouted over the murmured voices of the dwarrows as they saw Bella cradled in Fíli’s arms. _“Wizard!”_

“I heard you the first—” He broke off when he saw her, and a darkness passed over his eyes that seemed to color the air around him. “It cannot be,” he murmured.

“What’s wrong with her?” Kíli asked in panic over his brother’s shoulder as Bella started to twitch and jerk in Fíli’s arms. 

Gandalf moved forward, taking off his hat and setting his staff and sword to the side. “Balin,” he said without looking up, “go further into the caves. You will find a confused party of elves approaching.” Though his voice was steady, Thorin saw a slight tremble in the old man’s hands. 

“Elves,” Dwalin cursed, pacing behind the wizard, eyes flashing to Bella and betraying his concern. “Just what we need—”

“Swallow your petty hatred and _listen_ , you daft fool,” Gandalf thundered, nearly shaking the stone around them. “Balin,” he said again, and though the old dwarf looked about as happy as his brother, he nodded, “ask for Lord Elrond. Tell him I request the Beckoning on behalf of the daughter of Belladonna Took.”

Balin looked to Thorin, as if waiting for his approval. Thorin tried to keep his expression clear as he barked, “Go.”

He would not think about the elves, the loathsome, fickle devils. Of course the wizard had led them into a elf hole. 

“The Beckoning?” Kíli asked as Balin, followed closely by Bofur, Glóin, and Nori, charged deeper into the caves. “What’s that?”

“It is the only thing which might save her now.” Gandalf knelt in front of Fíli and rolled back his sleeves. He fixed storm-boiling eyes on Thorin. “Hold her. No matter what you see, hold her.”

Thorin watched on, fighting the urge to pull the wizard back to stop whatever sorcery he might begin working. _Elves_. The blade at his waist seemed to vibrate and twitch as he clenched his fist. But before he could move, Gandalf smoothed sweat-matted hair from Bella’s face. The movement was almost tender, before he ripped the arrow from her shoulder. 

“What are you doing?” Óin shouted, held back by his brother when he tried to get closer. “She’ll bleed—”

Bella’s scream pierced the cave and her little body surged and bucked. Fíli lost his grip on her and she nearly rolled over, before Thorin grabbed her arms and pushed her into the stone. He struggled, a strength pulsing from Bella that was not natural jerking in her small limbs. Panic clogged his mind as she nearly threw him off. 

“Gandalf,” he said, searching, voice breaking as the wizard began reciting something in an old speech which made Thorin’s insides crawl. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the arrow clatter against stone and burst into black dust. The black veins along Bella’s neck bulged and her eyes flashed open. Gone was the brilliant, warm black, replaced by a filmy white, slits of sick yellow down their centers. 

“What is this?” he asked, barely able to hold her down as foam dribbled from her mouth, a pathetic keening choking up from her throat. “Answer me!”

“The arrow was Morgul-made. I had hoped to purge it before she passed into shadow.” Gandalf frowned, closed his eyes, and continued muttering. His hand hovered over her shoulder. At first, nothing happened, and all Thorin could do was hold her down as she bucked and writhed in his grip. 

Gandalf’s hand flexed, and a pulse of air hit Thorin, smelling of smoke and ash and lightning. Small black shards rose from Bella’s shoulder, drifting lazily, as if borne up on a wind. They glistened, and Thorin seemed to feel a dark whisper rake across his mind. Magic. He had not thought to see it being worked so plain before his eyes, and yet the feeling which crawled across his spine and seemed to curl tendrils into his lungs was borne of nothing natural, nothing of this world. The black shards broke apart into dust, just like the arrow, and Bella stilled. 

Breathing hard, Thorin checked her pulse, ignoring the chill that seeped into him from her clammy flesh. Anger and dread roared in his chest and he rounded on the wizard. “What did you do to her?”

“These weapons were forged for one purpose,” Gandalf said in a rumbling voice, getting to his feet with a dark look in his eyes, “and one purpose alone; to corrupt the lives of those they touch. I will not allow such evil to pass into Imladris.”

“If you’ve let her die to protect your elvish friends,” Thorin said, not wanting to raise his voice any louder as he knelt over Bella, still cold to his touch, “I will ensure that you do not live long enough to see the next sun rise.”

“I could do nothing more than draw out the poisoned shards.” Gandalf retrieved his hat and sword, sagging against his staff, not seeming to hear Thorin’s threat. Or if he did, it didn’t trouble him. “She will not succumb.”

“Succumb to what?” Dwalin muttered. “What’s this talk about darkness and shadows?”

“There is more at work here than I feared.” Gandalf looked down at Bella, deep sadness and fear twisting his lined face. “We must get her to Lord Elrond. He is the only one who might help her now.”

“Balin’s coming back,” Ori shouted as he ran back into sight around the bend in the cave, “with a bunch of elves.”

The Company shifted, all of them readying for a fight. 

Thorin locked eyes with Gandalf, who bent and whispered, “You are not the only one who cares for your burglar, Thorin Oakenshield. Trust me.”

“Uncle?” Kíli asked, hovering close and looking at him for answers. Beside him, Fíli stared down at Bella with stricken eyes, still wide and searching, as if he didn’t quite believe what he had seen. 

Thorin looked down, the hard-packed fear of seeing Bella lifeless before him threatening to spill out of his control. 

He lifted her into his hands, held her as long as he could, before moving to Fíli, and motioning for him to rise.

If he was to meet these elves head on, he could not do it with Bella unconscious in his arms. As loathe as he was to give her away, he owed his Company too much to leave them without leadership. 

Fíli took Bella at once, some of his shock fading as he swallowed and nodded. 

“Let us present ourselves to our hosts, then,” Thorin said, shooting one last cold look at Gandalf, and walking to the head of his Company. “And trust they are feeling gracious.” 

 

~  ✧ ~

 

Much later, out of the sight of ghostly elves and damn trickling fountains of Rivendell, Thorin would marvel that the meeting with Lord Elrond had gone as smoothly as it did. All of his Company, himself included, were more cautious with their words than if they had stood before Mahal in his own halls, though perhaps they were a bit more sullen.

The elf-lord was too smooth, like silk flowing over polished marble, but he allowed them entry soon enough when he saw Bella. How he knew her mother, or why she should garner such special treatment, Thorin didn’t have the energy to guess. Gandalf and the elf-lord exchanged quick words in elvish, and then they were gone, taking Bella into a room and shutting the door, Thorin and the Company on the wrong side. 

He had nearly snapped then, half-mad with grinding his teeth and forcing his fear and anger into a cage deep within himself. He would have, if not for Balin pulling him aside and reminding him that stood inside the threshold of an enemy’s home. If he broke peace now, he would bring not only the elves’ wrath upon them, but that of Mahal, who would not suffer such an act from his people. To break the bond of trust offered by a host was to spit in his Maker’s face. 

For two days, the elves served them green leaves and thin wine, watched them closely from their airy halls and open windows. For two days, the Company sat in a pretty room with pretty murals and books written in pretty, curling script that made him wish he were half-blind so as not to see the graceful pedantry in each line. For two days they waited, and lost hope. 

It was the longest two days Thorin had spent in over a century, though he would not let himself examine why. His burglar was dying from a wound she’d taken to save his nephew. He did not let himself think past this singular truth.

He knew, somewhere safe in the privacy of his own thoughts, that they all were courting a quick and painful trip to their Maker. The loss of any of his Company, his kin, would be uncountably horrible, and he would carry their deaths with him for the rest of his days, if he were unlucky enough to survive what they did not. 

But to lose _her_ , a woman born of sunlight and green, growing things, who was as fierce as she was kind, and might have lived a long, fruitful life without his interference… 

All of them were subdued with the shroud of Bella’s condition hanging over them, but Fíli was distraught. He did not sleep, he did not eat. He spoke only to Kíli, and only when prompted. He looked how Thorin felt on the inside, how he would have let himself look if he and his men had not been sitting in an elvish city with elvish guards and elvish air polluting his lungs, if he had allowed himself to be selfish. If he were not a king whose concerns were larger than the life of one hobbit he’d met a few months ago. 

After two days, Thorin himself sleeping little and feeling like a wild animal pacing behind ornate bars, he found his nephew sitting outside the door Gandalf and the elf-lord had closed his burglar behind. He gave the elves gathered in the courtyard no greeting, wondering what reason they could have for caring about the life of a hobbit they didn’t know.

Fíli jumped as Thorin approached, nodding once with red-rimmed, tired eyes, before he returned to his vigil. 

“Kíli told me you haven’t eaten,” Thorin said, holding out a loaf of bread the elves seemed entirely too pleased with. It tasted of dry, stale shortbread, but it was filling, in the way that a stand could hold a suit of armor, but not make it move. 

Fíli’s jaw clenched. “I’m not hungry.”

“You’re going to collapse soon.”

“You think me so weak that I—”

“I don’t think you’re weak,” Thorin murmured in surprise, struck by the hard defiance in his nephew’s voice. “I have never thought that.”

Fíli looked up, brow furrowing. He shook his head, resigned to silence once more. 

For the second time in his life, Fíli reminded him keenly of his sister, of the tight-lipped grief which had overcome Dís after the death of her husband. It wasn’t as deep, nor as potent as hers had been, but it held the hint of that gaping chasm of pain. It was enough to shake Thorin’s core in memory.

He had to work hard to find his voice. “Walk with me.”

“I won’t leave.”

But Fíli would break, today, tomorrow—it would happen soon. He was too young to know how to weather this kind of raw guilt, and it would eat him alive if he let it. Better to break in solitude, than in the presence of _elves._

Thorin rested a hand against his nephew’s shoulder. “I would speak to you out of the eyes of our watchful hosts.”

Fíli looked ready to argue, but one look around the airy hall made his expression harden. He nodded, and rose.

Thorin led him down a few platforms, into a shaded courtyard that looked somewhat private, though he would not put it past the silent wretches to spy on them from the bushes. Statues stood in nooks along the colonnade, depicting dead kings and lords of elves, all of them too fair and fine. The silence made his skin crawl.

Thorin turned to Fíli, who had followed him close and stood clenching his hands and staring down at the ground with vacant eyes, and offered the food to him once again. “This lembas tastes of cloud-shit, but it’s better than nothing. You do Miss Baggins no service by neglecting yourself.”

“I do her no service at all,” Fíli whispered, blinking his eyes against sudden moisture. “I did her no service in the cave. What good is my health when she’s dying because I was too slow to get out of the way of a damn arrow?”

“It is not your fault she took that arrow,” Thorin murmured. 

“I was supposed to protect her—”

“And I swore to protect you,” he said firmly. “As Dwalin swore to protect me, as we both swore to your mother to protect you before you were even born. All of us could make an argument for the hobbit’s condition, if you went back far enough. It is a fool’s distraction, Fíli, one not worthy of you.” Thorin stepped forward, holding his nephew by the shoulders as Fíli fought tears. “You think I have not been wracking my mind for something I could have done to stop her? If I had not shouted at her earlier that day, sending her off to the trolls, if the wizard had not brought her into this in the first place? Think hard enough and you will always find fault within yourself. Lesser men might crumble under that guilt, but you cannot. A king cannot.”

Fíli met his gaze then, and the last brittle piece of his armor shattered. “She looked so small, uncle,” he managed, bowing his head as sobs broke from his lips. “She’s never looked small before.”

Thorin pulled him into a hug, holding him as he worked through the flood he’d held at bay for two days. He waited until Fíli’s shoulders stopped shaking, and his tears dried. In these moments, it was so easy to remember who he he had been before he was king. When he had been simply an uncle, a brother, a friend. It was easy to regret the time he’d spent running from his responsibility, the time he’d lost with his kin, especially when he was reminded just how young his nephew truly was.

“I’m so sorry,” Fíli whispered.

Thorin shook his head, fighting the tightness in his own throat. “You have nothing to be sorry for, _gultalut_. You are one of the fiercest warriors I’ve ever known, no matter your age or experience. Not for a second do I think you faltered. No one could have done better, fought harder. Miss Baggins made her choice, and you must honor that.” He held both sides of his nephew’s face, wishing he had more to give than reassurance, wishing this quest were behind them, wishing his legacy, and Fíli’s inheritance, were more than a fool’s dream. “You have a kind soul, Fíli. Don’t tarnish it by blaming yourself for things you cannot control.” He pressed his forehead against Fíli’s and murmured, “ _I’khif mudtu, irakdashat._ ”

“ _Izul khama astû, irak’adad,_ ” Fíli managed, wiping his eyes. 

“Eat,” Thorin said, shoving the elf bread into his chest. “I have no desire to feed you like a babe. If I recall, it grew tiresome quickly.”

Fíli laughed weakly and sat, eating bits of the bread with a scowl. “What is this?”

“Elvish sustenance,” Thorin grunted, joining him on his bench. “It explains why they all have sour expressions on their faces.”

They lapsed into conversation for a time, skirting the subject both were too craven to revisit. Fíli was done with his meager meal, brushing his hands of crumbs, when he finally murmured, “Do you think she will survive?”

Thorin made sure his voice was steady when he answered, “I think Miss Baggins is the most obstinate person I have ever met. She might survive if only to spite the world for thinking to kill her.”

Fíli’s smile was thin. 

“The sorcery of wizards and elves is beyond my understanding,” he continued. “If there is something to be done, Gandalf will do it. He seems to care for her, in his own way.”

Fíli shuddered. “I hope I never earn the affections of a wizard. They seem like more trouble than they’re worth.”

Thorin chuckled. “Indeed. Better the affection—”

“Excuse me, Your Majesty.”

He started, hand reaching for his sword out of instinct. 

An elf stood at the edge of a courtyard, so similar to the statues at her side Thorin had to suppress a shudder of unease. “Yes?”

She eyed his hand, one dark brow lifting—in amusement or insult, he didn’t know. “My father asks for your presence.”

“Your father,” he repeated, trying to relax.

“Lord Elrond.”

Fíli tensed as Thorin rose. His heart surged to life, beating a fast rhythm against his sternum. Had the elf-lord sent this daughter of his to lighten the blow of her death?

“Is she—” Fíli broke off and stood. 

The elf glanced between them both, and a softness came over her face then that looked almost kind. “Your companion will live.”

Fíli sat down again, head falling to his hands as he let out a shaky groan of relief. 

Thorin had half a mind to join him, but stood firm. “How is she?”

“She sleeps.” The elf’s head tilted, a faint line appearing in her brow. “I have been with her through most of the healing, though I know not when she will wake.”

“You sound concerned,” he said, adding reluctantly, “my lady.”

Her eyes lowered and her lips pursed. “I am. Such evil has not been seen within the realm of Imladris in my lifetime. She is strong, to have survived at all. Beyond that, I know not what the scar of a Morgul-arrow might do to one who has passed through its shadow. My father will know more.”

Thorin followed the elf, Fíli close behind, but as they caught sight of Gandalf and Elrond standing outside the room where Bella lay, he slowed, and stopped Fíli. “Tell the others of Miss Baggins’ condition.”

Fíli looked mutinous. “I have to see her, uncle.”

“Not looking like you do now.” Thorin arched his brow. “You heard the elf. She’s sleeping. You need to rest, Fíli. Can you imagine what she’ll say when she wakes and finds out you starved yourself and forewent sleep for her benefit?”

His nephew sagged, as if the news Bella would live had drained all the fight from him. “Right. I’ll tell them. Though I won’t stop them all if they come to see for themselves.”

Thorin’s mouth twitched. “I would not ask the impossible of you.”

He watched the boy go, letting his calm demeanor slip for one moment of panic. If Elrond’s daughter spoke true, and something had changed Bella in her surviving this… _evil_ they all kept speaking of, he would not have Fíli hear it from the cold lips of an elf. 

As he walked forward, he steeled himself, reminded his face of calm and strength. 

“Ah, Thorin,” Gandalf called, waving him over. He looked tired, but happy.

The elf-lord at his side looked just as he had when Thorin had arrived two days ago, though there was a rigidity to his face which was not present before. 

“Master Oakenshield,” the elf said with a short bow, “I am honored to greet you in my home. I apologize for not doing it sooner, or more properly.”

Thorin inclined his own head, wondering why, if his daughter had used his proper title, this elf should not. Was the daughter playing some joke on him? _Mahal curse the humor of elves._ “I take no offense, and must offer my sincerest gratitude for your labors to save one of my Company.” The words sounded false even to his own ears, but he hoped the elf was too tired to take true offense to their emptiness.

Gandalf sighed. “Bella will survive, though her wound will never fully heal.”

Thorin looked between them, unable to glean anything from the elf-lord’s blank expression. “What do you mean by that?”

“Perhaps we should reconvene later tonight,” the elf-lord said, a thin smile crossing his mouth. “This is not a conversation for the open air.”

“My burglar has been locked behind your doors for two days,” Thorin said coldly. “I will know what has befallen her _now_.”

The elf-lord watched him curiously, before saying something quick in elvish. Thorin fought the urge to slam his fist into the elf’s quirked brow, but Gandalf only sighed and shook his head.

The elf stepped forward, leaning his head to lower his voice and speak only to Thorin. “Young Bella was pierced by a weapon made by the Nazgûl.”

Thorin scowled. “Nazgûl? Surely not.”

“You know of the Nine?”

“My grandfather wore a ring of power, elf.” He ignored Gandalf’s exasperated frown. “I know more than you think.” 

The Nazgûl… Mahal protect him. If these orcs had been searching for him and his Company, what would a Ring-wraith’s interest be in his quest?

“Then you know who commands them,” the elf continued, seemingly unconcerned with Thorin’s anger. “I admit, your presence here raises many questions, Master Oakenshield, not the least of which is why a band of orcs should hunt a company of dwarves, especially orcs carrying weapons borne of Minas Morgul.”

Thorin held his gaze, keeping his face clear of all reaction. 

“Oh, come now, Thorin,” Gandalf said with a scowl. 

“I will not share my business with an elf.”

“This _elf_ just saved your burglar and offered you shelter,” Gandalf continued with a huff. “Stubborn fool. Might I remind you we still have need of Lord Elrond’s assistance?”

Thorin shot the wizard a dark look. He spoke of the map. He could not read it, nor any of his Company, but Gandalf had insisted this elf-lord might be able to months ago, before they had set out on this quest. The wizard had been planning this for a while, then. 

It cost him, but Thorin said, “Very well.”

“I wish you no ill will, Master Oakenshield,” the elf-lord said with a wry smile. “You travel with the daughter of Belladonna Took, and that makes you welcome in my home.”

Thorin frowned, remembering Gandalf’s words in the cave outside the valley. “Was she a friend of yours?”

A look of actual sadness passed over the elf’s eyes, to Thorin’s astonishment. He hadn’t thought elves capable of emotion beyond wry humor or disdain. 

Pressing a hand to his heart, he murmured, “She was _elvellon_ , a treasured friend.”

Thorin held his tongue, though by Gandalf’s tight expression, he suspected Bella had no knowledge of this. More secrets, then. How had she ever come to trust this snake? “You said Miss Baggins will never fully recover from her wound.”

“It is an injury which will pain her for the rest of her days. One does not pass through such dark fire unscathed. But she will live,” the elf-lord added, not unkindly. “More than that, she will need to discover for herself.”

Thorin nodded, words failing him. 

What had she sacrificed in saving his nephew?

“She will sleep a few more days, and I would not expect her full strength to return for some time.” 

Thorin fought a smile. Bella would likely rise with the dawn and have strength enough to shout them all down for not feeding her properly while she slept. The image of her screaming obscenities at the elf-lord was almost enough to banish his foul mood altogether. 

“I apologize,” the elf-lord continued, backing away, “but I have exhausted myself. I will retire for the day, but would welcome your Company this evening for a feast. We shall talk more of your…request later.”

Thorin watched him go, holding himself back from pushing through the doors to Bella’s room, to see for himself she was alive. He might be welcome in this elf-lord’s ill-made home, but he would not press his hospitality any further than he already had. 

“You care for her.”

Thorin looked up sharply at Gandalf. “What?” The question was, of course, unnecessary. Thorin knew exactly what the wizard asked. He simply didn’t want to answer. 

Gandalf hummed in curiosity. “You’ve been at the door almost as much as young Fíli. Strange, to think two dwarven lords so wrapped up in the little life of a hobbit.”

Thorin knew Gandalf was testing him, that the wizard cared for Bella deeply, in his own way. “She is one of my Company. All of us have been worried. Just because you show little enough regard for her—”

“You weren’t exactly thrilled to bring her on,” Gandalf continued. “Your demeanor these past few weeks has not convinced me of a change of heart where either of you are concerned.”

“Speak plain, Greybeard,” Thorin said darkly. “I have no energy now to indulge your convoluted chatter.”

“Why should I speak plain when you dance around your words the same as I?” The wizard moved off, shaking his head. “With far less skill, I should add.”

Thorin was left alone on the platform outside Bella’s room, save for the elves drifting past him like ghosts, for all the noise they made. He stared at the doors, as if he might peer through and see Bella sleeping, face scrunched and burrowed into her pillow, snoring loudly. It was one of the first things he’d grown to appreciate about her—her snores rivaled Bombur’s on a damp night. If he could just see her, lips slightly parted, cheeks flushed with a full, healthy, glow to banish the pale skin webbed with black in his mind…

“Shall I tell her you were waiting?”

He closed his eyes as the urge to scream nearly overwhelmed him. If these elves insisted on speaking without prompting, perhaps they should warn others of their approach. They could wear bells.

“No,” he said slowly, facing the elf who had come to find him and Fíli. “Let her rest.”

She bowed her head, eyes twinkling with the same sly smile that hid in her father’s ancient gaze.

“Thank you—,” 

“Arwen,” she supplied gracefully.

“Thank you, Lady Arwen. I am—grateful for your aid.”

The elf said nothing, but he felt her eyes on the back of his head as he left to rejoin his Company, conjuring up the image of Bella hale and whole, and dismissing the warmth such a sight might stir in his chest. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Khuzdul (all translations from The Dwarrow Scholar)  
>  _akrâgkharm_ \- male that is no direct relation by blood, yet is regarded by one as a brother, holding him in high honor and offering an unshakable sense of loyalty, friendship and profound platonic love  
>  _gultalut_ \- little boar, term of endearment  
>  _I’khif mudtu, irakdashat._ \- Take heart, nephew.  
>  _Izul khama astû, irak’adad._ \- Only for you, uncle.
> 
> Aaaaannnddd this is where canon decides to take a break and let me play around. Again, trying my hand and shoving Lotr and The Hobbit into one, so things might get a little weird. 
> 
> Update on posting; I am going through a hard time irl, and I will have to slow my updates for this fic. I plan on doing one a week, but that might stretch if things get hairy. Thank you all for your patience <3


	12. The Sky That She Was Made For

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Runway" by Nadia Reed](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSQ8JWN7JPM&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-&index=12)

Bella hung in the midst of a darkness so foul, she could scarcely remember what the warmth of the sun felt like against her skin. 

Her body ached and shook, broke apart and reformed. She screamed in the darkness—waiting, begging, for death, for an end to the whispering cold made all the worse by the heat licking at her back. It was a flickering, burning heat which pierced her shoulder, nailed her to a wall, hung her up on a rack. 

The fire beckoned her to look back at it, to stare into the raging inferno she hung above, but she refused. She refused, and refused, and as her will faded and broke, she started to wonder, _why not?_

A deep voice echoed words that should never have been spoken. All around her was black, her sight gone, doused, but she felt that flame, that piercing, shrieking flame. She could turn. She could look. What was the harm?

Another voice, steady and serene, commanding in the midst of the heat and the cold and the burning dark, asked her to return, to come back from the darkness and into the light. It beckoned, Beckoning, to that small piece of her not wreathed in flame or shaking in the cold dark. The piece which remembered the feeling of sunlight on her skin. 

She found her feet. And ran.

 

~  ✧ ~

 

Bella’s first thought upon waking was that the ground had never felt so lovely. 

She stretched, wincing slightly as a rock, or something equally as unwanted, bit into her shoulder, as her ankle throbbed and her ribs burned. 

What on earth had she gotten into yesterday to make her feel so foul? 

She waited for the snores of Bofur and Glóin to greet her, the little catching of flint to flame as Bombur prepared breakfast, the groaning of Fíli and Kíli when Dwalin roused them with a deceptively gentle kick to the ass. She waited for Thorin’s voice to call them all together. As much as she’d come to scowl at the sound of it while awake and in better control of herself, in the hazy moments between sleeping and waking, when her mind was soft and her thoughts supple, she relished its deep rumble, its force and purpose, memorizing the notes of its cadence—always sharp but not biting, firm, but fond. 

When nothing greeted her except a gentle swish of wind through branches, she scowled and pressed her head into a silky pillow which smelled of pine and fresh air. 

That was her second warning that something was not right. Her little pillow had not smelled so nice in nearly two months. 

Her eyes blinked open slowly, the light nearly blinding her before it faded to a soft, dim glow of candles. 

“Good morning.”

She frowned as she tried to raise her head. _That_ was a voice which did not belong to anyone in the Company. It was a voice born from a dream, carried on soft winds. It reminded her strangely of twinkling ponds. 

Bella tried to sit up, but found herself unable to move more than a few inches before pain left her sinking back down onto a frightfully comfortable mattress with a groan. 

“I would suggest not trying to get up on your own,” the voice said again, moving closer. “I’ve been tasked with watching over you, and if I fail now, I am afraid your dwarves might seek revenge. It would do little to ease the tensions of their presence here, and I would hate to see my father pull all of his hair out. Baldness would not suit him, I think.”

A face hovered over her like a dreamy vision, a beautiful face, made of porcelain skin and dark blue eyes that seemed to shine like the moon itself. Bella had the sudden thought that she might still be asleep, until graceful, firm hands pulled her upright and helped her settle back against a mountain of pillows. 

She blinked and watched as the woman sat at the edge of the bed she was lying in, and gave her a lovely, bright smile. “Hello.”

It took Bella a moment to find her voice. “ ’Lo.” She winced at the sound, more like a chicken had swallowed a stone than the deep resonance of the woman in front of her. 

“I suspect you are a bit confused.” The woman laughed gently at her blank look. “Forgive me, but you look just like your mother.”

There were only a few things the woman could have said which might have made Bella even more confused. This was one of them. “My moth—”

An elegant wooden door on the other side of the room cracked open, and in the crack appeared Gandalf. “My apologies, Lady Arwen, but I—” His eyes brightened with relief as he pushed the door fully open. “Bella, my dear! You should not be awake.”

“I’m not quite sure I am,” she muttered, wincing as she tried to lean forward. She dare not take her eyes off the woman in front of her, as if she were an apparition which might vanish if left alone for more than a moment. 

Unbidden, memories of her mother whispering about sylvan spirits came to her, and an uncanny chill trickled down her spine.

“She’s awake?” Kíli’s voice came from behind Gandalf.

With a flurry of disgruntled movement, Gandalf was shoved aside as Fíli barreled into the room. His expression was one of fierce determination, and Bella noticed at once the dark circles under his eyes and the manic concern in the set of his mouth, but before she could so much as open her mouth to say hello, he jerked to a halt. His eyes widened and a brilliant blush erupted over his cheeks. He looked down and made to turn, when Kíli ran directly into him.

“Sorry,” Fíli muttered, awkwardly extracting himself from Kíli’s overeager limbs.

Kíli merely grinned suggestively at Bella. “ _Hello_ , Miss Baggins.”

Fíli sent an elbow into his stomach and grabbed his ear to pull his gaze down.

Bella watched all of this in a slight delay, her sluggish mind trying to catch up. When her memory finally clicked into place, she folded forward onto her knees. As if the pain of her last few days had been held at bay by her momentary ignorance, it fell on her at once—her encounter with the trolls, the Company’s flight over the moors, the fight in the caves, taking an arrow meant for Fíli.

The long dark and the burning flame. 

Her shoulder throbbed and she grimaced. 

The woman sitting at the edge of her bed rose gracefully and gestured to the young dwarves. “I think I will insist on one visitor at a time.” As she moved, her hair shifted, and Bella caught sight of pointed ears. 

She was an _elf._

Kíli backed away easily enough, watching the elf with an almost furtive awe, though he still managed to shoot Bella a cheeky wink. Fíli hesitated, looking up again with a pained expression and focusing on a spot a few feet to her left. “We’ll be right outside. You just call if you—if you need anything.”

Bella smiled weakly. Despite her pain and confusion, seeing Fíli’s embarrassment was a boon she would gladly accept. “Some sense would be nice right now. Or brandy.”

Kíli beamed over his brother’s shoulder. “I think we can manage—”

“Out,” the elf said imperiously, turning back to Bella with a slight smile. “There are clothes on the table beside your bed. Don’t overextend yourself. I will return to check on you soon.”

Bella frowned and looked down. Besides a bandage stretching from her neck to her ribcage on the left side of her chest, she wore no clothes. “I appear to be naked.”

Gandalf cleared his throat, looking in determined interest at the bookshelves lining the walls to either side of her bed. 

“I’m pretty sure you’ve seen me in less, old man,” she croaked, reaching gingerly for what she hoped was a shirt, and pulling it on under her covers. “I distinctly recall you being present at a few of my earliest birthdays.”

“You were quite fond of picking up your skirts, if I remember correctly.” When she gave him the all-clear, he turned and came to her bed. “Ever determined to scandalize your stuffy relatives.”

Bella watched him sit, seeing the concern and relief in his eyes. “What happened? I can’t remember much.”

“You proved your courage a bit too forcefully, my dear.” He took her hand in both of his and squeezed tight. “I should be happy you’ve proven my estimation of your character with so much enthusiasm, and yet I can’t help but find myself abundantly grateful you’ve recovered so quickly.”

“Gandalf,” she murmured, fear rolling over her like a slow-moving storm as she heard the tight note in his voice. “Just tell me.”

And so he told her, about the arrow forged by minions of the Nazgûl, dipped in poison of Morgul-make. He told her about drawing out the shards of the arrowhead before they could reach her heart and corrupt her soul, of Lord Elrond healing her and pulling her back from the darkness. 

She listened in silence, each word dropping like pebbles into the cavern of her chest. 

Gandalf would not say how close she came to death, but when he spoke of the wound which would not truly heal, and would linger long past its physical scar, how she would carry that darkness with her to the end of her days, she felt again like a bird thrown from its nest before its wings had fully grown. 

Sitting in an elvish house, far from the only home she’d ever known, she felt small, and young. 

Perhaps she was a fool for thinking herself any kind of bird in the first place.

“And the others?” she asked when she again found her voice. “Are all of them—”

“Much haler of heart, now that they know you will live,” he finished affectionately. “I think even the famed hospitality of Lord Elrond might be challenged by their revels.”

She sighed and leaned back, closing her eyes. “I’m in Rivendell. I never thought I’d see the day.” The elf’s words about her mother resurfaced. “Gandalf, that elf—”

“Lady Arwen Undomniel. Daughter to Lord Elrond.”

“Right. She mentioned that I…that she thought I looked like my mother.”

Gandalf smiled. “I would imagine she recalls your mother fondly from her brief stay here. The two became fast friends.”

Bella stared at the wizard—this, of all the things he’d said to her, finding no place to land. “She—when did… They were friends?”

“For a short time, yes.” Gandalf’s eyes twinkled. “You did not think you were the first hobbit ever to leave the Shire, did you?”

She took a deep breath, unable to make sense of the tangle of shock and excitement running through her. “She never told me.” And underneath everything, a small, petty hurt. Her mother had traveled as far as Rivendell and never said?

Gandalf patted her leg. “I think she wanted you to find your own way, my dear girl. She worried, sometimes, that it was her influence making you wild and rowdy. She would have told you in her own time, I’m sure, but after your father’s death…”

After her father’s untimely death, her mother had faded away, pieces of her flaking off like dust in the wind, until one day she simply didn’t wake up. They called it the curse of a wilder heart, too much passion and feeling for a hobbit to handle. Tooks especially suffered from such an affliction, falling to listlessness and depression after the loss of a loved one, and never recovering. A few of her relations had taken their lives after a spouse or child died, though she had only heard of this in passing, and usually over empty tankards and low, long-burning embers. Hobbits did not speak of grief of that magnitude, and so it was brushed away, forgotten by all except those who’d known them best. They led such peaceful, plentiful lives—it was rude to ask for more, to want more of someone you loved. 

She had never blamed her mother, not when she’d seen her parents together, how closely they’d bonded and how fiercely they’d loved. Her father’s death had broken her mother, in a way she would never understand. If Belladonna Baggins née Took had intended anything, it was that she would live a long life with her truest love, not find herself alone with only her daughter for company.

“When did she come here?” she murmured.

“I believe it was just after she came of age. She left one day without word, and came back a year later determined to marry your father. After he courted her properly, of course.”

Bella smiled to dull the pain welling up. “I’m sure Old Took approved.”

“He forbid anyone to go after her.” Gandalf chuckled. “He dragged your Uncle Isengrim back by his suspenders when he tried to go after her. She was his favorite, after all, and he would not let anyone get in the way of her adventures.” He sighed deeply, patted her head, as he used to do when she was very small. “I wondered if you had the makings to outdo even your mother for nerve. I do so hate to be right all the time.”

“I’m not so sure,” she muttered, trying to rotate her shoulder, and wincing. “The last few days might be an argument against any nerve I thought I had.”

“What do you mean?” He frowned at her down the bridge of his crooked nose. “You single-handedly outwitted three trolls, warned your comrades of an impending threat, fought alongside seasoned warriors, and stood in the path of a blow which might have killed a lesser man or woman. Does that sound like the actions of someone lacking nerve?”

She stared at him, cut bare by the look of fierce pride and guilt in his eyes, before the door opened again, and the elf entered. 

“Apologies, Mithrandir, but my father is meeting with Thorin Oakenshield to discuss his proposition.” She pursed her lips. “I think he desires your presence to smooth any…arguments which may arise.”

“Your father is a smart man,” he grumbled, giving Bella’s hand one last squeeze. He leaned in conspiratorially and whispered, “Come find me if you feel up to it. I have a feeling this meeting might go on for some time, and I think your input would be most welcome. Not in the least because I will be saved further pestering from your overly-attached dwarven companions.”

Bella’s chest constricted at the mention of Thorin, who would no doubt have plenty to say about her holding his Company up. How long had they been in Rivendell? And how long would she need to endure his snide, grumbling remarks about the necessity of such a detour? “Don’t cause trouble.”

“No, no, I leave that to you, dear Bella.” With a great heave, he rose and left the room. 

Now that she was properly awake, she saw the full extent of this Lady Arwen’s person. _Elf indeed_ , Bella thought, trying to straighten against her mountain of pillows. “I’m told you and your father are to thank for my health,” she said awkwardly, trying to look proper while wearing rumpled clothes and feeling like a stuffed scarecrow. 

“My father has great skill with the healing arts,” she said, gliding over to her with a clinical air. “He tells me most of your wounds should fade within a day or two. I merely offered my aid, and companionship.” She held out a hand. “If you feel up to it, I can help you dress properly?”

Bella took her hand and rose shakily to her feet. An _elf_ was helping her dress. She was standing in _Rivendell_ , of all places, with a Company of dwarves as her companions. And yet the only thing on her mind was—

“You knew my mother?” Bella blurted.

Arwen smiled, though there was a hint of sadness in her eyes. “I did. She found me in the woods one day in the midst of grief and comforted me, and was my companion for a time.”

Bella stilled in the process of straightening the garment Arwen had given her, a ridiculous silk thing which seemed to continue flowing no matter where the fabric ended. It gave her the feeling of being elegantly drowned. 

“That sounds like her,” she murmured. 

“Your mother had a fierce soul. I count myself lucky to have known her, though I weep for her death.” Arwen eyed her closely, her soft gaze seeming to brush aside cobwebs and shadows which had formed over Bella’s heart. “You take after her, I think.”

Bella frowned, shifting uncomfortably. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate the thought, but she disliked this stranger thinking to presume anything about her character. “I don’t mean to offend you, Lady Arwen, but…you don’t know me.”

“I don’t. Though I know Gandalf, and his love for you speaks louder than my ignorance. Your companions, too, have made their opinion of you clear.” Her brow arched and her eyes twinkled with mirth. “I know little of dwarves, but they do not strike me as generous with their affections. To win their trust, and loyalty, is no simple feat.”

Bella’s throat went tight as she watched the elf retrieve a comb. “Dwarves aren’t so miserly as that. They’re good, kind men.”

Arwen inclined her head. “All the more reason to trust their fondness for you.” She held out the comb with a slight smile.

Bella let the elf order her hair into something resembling a braid, though, looking at her flowing black hair which might as well have been painted on for how liquid it fell over her graceful shoulders, she wondered if any elf had ever needed to tame their hair. 

Standing in front of a tall mirror, she frowned at her reflection. The dress was far too fine for her, silky and falling down to cover her feet. She’d no doubt be tripping over herself the moment she left this room. Her face looked normal but for a bit of redness on her lip and bruising around one eye. The bandage on her chest covered most of the injury caused by the arrow, but a faint hint of dark purple veins crawled up her neck, as if her skin had turned translucent. 

On the whole, she looked ridiculous and tired, but remarkably well for having narrowly escaped death. _Beggars can’t be choosers, I suppose._

“Your own clothes are being repaired and laundered,” Arwen said, as if reading her thoughts.

“Well,” Bella cleared her throat, fighting the urge to roll the gown’s sleeves back, “I mean this is very nice, it’s just—”

A knock interrupted her, and Kíli poked his head into the room without any attempt to avert his gaze. “Do you mind if I come in, Lady Arwen?” He looked Bella over with a barely-suppressed grin. “I thought Bella might like to wear her own clothes.”

“Oh, thank you,” Bella sighed, shooting a nervous glance at Arwen. “I mean…”

The elf merely smiled, and nodded. “My services are clearly no longer needed. I don’t know how long you plan to stay, Bella, but I should like to spend time with you, if you are willing.”

Bella nodded slowly, but smiled at the prospect. 

Kíli shuffled aside, watching Arwen go with over-bright eyes. 

Bella snorted when they were alone. “You just wanted to ogle the beautiful elf,” she said, holding out her hand for the clothes in Kíli’s arms. 

“Hmm?” He grinned as he shut the door and bounded forward. “Jealous?”

“You’re horrible.”

Kíli watched her hesitantly as she walked stiffly over to the screen on the other side of the room. “I’m not going to break apart, Kíli,” she murmured, giving him a reassuring smile as she gestured for him to turn around. 

“All right, I won’t say I came without ulterior motives.”

Bella rolled her eyes as she slipped gingerly into her underskirts and corset, tying it more loosely than she normally would. “At least you’re honest. She is very pretty, though I wouldn’t say that in front of the rest of the Company.”

“No, no,” Kíli said, followed by the sounds of a chair shifting and the frantic taps of his fingers against wood. “I—Bella, I wanted to talk to you. Alone.”

She hesitated, lacing up the front of her dress, blessedly firm and comfortable, and hanging at a reasonable height over her calves. The dark green cotton made her feel more normal, the cloth worn and a bit threadbare in places, stitched and patched over the last month. A little wild and rough, but it suited her more than the graceful elvish silks. “Is everything all right?”

He was quiet for a long time, so long, in fact, that she started to wonder if he’d leapt out the window into the pretty dusk. It was hard to get him to _stop_ talking, usually.

Bella edged out from behind the screen, smoothing the front of her dress in concern, only to find him staring at the ground, leg moving restlessly under his elbow. “How can you ask me that?” he murmured.

She stood still for a moment, seeing the anguish writ plain in his eyes, before moving to the edge of the bed and sitting down with a sigh. Now that she thought about it, she should have expected something like this. Dwarves were stubborn about everything, guilt apparently being no exception.

“You saved my brother,” he continued, looking up at her with an expression so fraught she might have laughed, if her chest hadn’t tightened in affection. 

“Yes, I did.” She smiled. “Did you not want me to?”

Kíli laughed weakly and wrapped her in a hug. 

“Kíli,” she choked, blinking tears of pain from her eyes, “when I said I wasn’t in danger of breaking apart, that wasn’t an invitation to test me to make sure.”

“Sorry,” he muttered, jerking away and rubbing the back of his head. He stared at her with a deep frown, as if deciding something, and then knelt in front of her.

Bella watched him in unease as he took her hands. “What are you doing?”

“I—Bella Baggins,” he said, taking a deep breath, “you have proven yourself a courageous and honest friend. For saving the life of my beloved brother, my kin, whom I value above all others, I pledge myself to your service. To the end of my days, I will do everything within my power to assist you, to protect you, in whatever you ask of me. I offer you my oath, on behalf of the blood-debt incurred by your courage, in the memory of my fathers, and their fathers before them. _M’imnu Durin_.”

She opened her mouth, and then closed it. _Sweet Shire preserve me._

“Do you accept?” he asked, his expression more solemn than she’d thought him capable.

“Do I accept your _service?”_ she asked, voice a bit high. “I— _no_ , I don’t.”

A furrow appeared in his brow. “I understand. Ask of me something else, and I will—”

“Kíli,” she said with a weak laugh, pulling her hands from his, “I don’t want anything from you.”

“You saved my brother’s life,” he said firmly. “I must repay that debt.”

“It’s not a debt, you daft boy.” She smiled, cupped his face. “You don’t owe me anything.”

His severe expression fell away, eyes widening in confusion. “Really?”

She rolled her eyes, patting the bed next to her. “Get up, or you’ll make me think you’re proposing.”

Kíli grinned, a roguish gleam flickering in his eyes. “If you’re asking for _that_ —”

“I could just throw you out, you know. Maybe I’ll get your pretty elf to come back in and haul you out by your collar.” She shifted to look him in the eye as he sat, frowning. “Why on earth would you go and pledge yourself to my service? Aren’t you pledged to your uncle?”

He hesitated. “I—well, technically, yes, but,” he spoke over her laugh, “blood-debts are sacred, Bella. Thorin would understand.”

“Blood-debt?” she asked, trying not to sound like the idea was ridiculous.

“When a dwarf is saved by someone outside his own kin, a blood-debt is created. The dwarf who did the saving has the right to ask whatever he wants, to repay that debt.” He shrugged. “It is one of our oldest tenants.”

Bella fought the urge to sigh. _Save me from the melodrama of dwarves_. “Kíli, I didn’t save your brother’s life to get something from you, or from him. I did it because I care about him. And you,” she added, smiling at the surprised light in his eyes. “You don’t owe me anything.”

He sagged, looking a little put out. “You’re sure? I can try it again with more groveling. I spent two days rehearsing that little speech.”

“Of course you did,” she said wryly, pushing herself off the bed with the help of his shoulder. “If you want to be helpful, you can help me find this secret meeting between your uncle and Gandalf.”

He rose, hands hovering on either side of her, as if she were an overfull bookcase in danger of tipping. “I told the others I’d bring you to dinner.”

“And you can, after I talk to your uncle.” She frowned. “I’d rather not have him shout at me in the middle of dinner. I don’t want him upsetting the elves.”

“He won’t shout at you,” Kíli muttered, though his frown spoke otherwise. 

“Confident in that, are you?”

“All right, I’ll help. Fíli, Balin, and Dwalin are with them, I think, as well as Lord Elrond.”

“Sounds like a powder keg waiting to blow.”

Kíli chuckled, but hesitated before he opened the door. “Bella, I can’t tell you how much it means that you saved Fíli’s life. It’s… I’ll never be able to thank you enough.”

Bella gave him a hug, grinning when he only patted her awkwardly so as not to hurt her. “I don’t know how it happened,” she murmured, “but I seem to be rather fond of you two, against my better judgement.”

“I think your judgement is just fine. Especially since you apparently think often about me proposing to you—”

The little smack she gave him lacked any force, and both of them were smiling by the time she made her way out of the room she’d recovered in.

Edging out into the courtyard and marveling at the beautiful, arching columns, the buildings that rose out of the forest itself, the trickling fountains and the purple-red hint of sunset casting every soft-shining surface in a warm glow—she felt something weighty and heavy inside her chest release into the gentle music of Rivendell. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Khuzdul  
>  _M’imnu Durin._ \- In Durin's name.
> 
> Thank you all for being patient. Life is still a little crazy, so I'm going to ask that you bear with me. Fic writing is low on the priority list write now. Thank you, as always for the support and comments. I appreciate them so much (and have every intention of responding to them one of these days). They've been really lovely to read during this stressful time <3


	13. Share the Road

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Hopeless Wanderer" by Mumford & Sons](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_FaGBjDXy0&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-&index=13)

Thorin sat across the table from the elf-lord, trying his best not to scowl through Gandalf’s cursory explanation of their quest. It felt like he’d been in this drafty, aromatic room for hours, listening to the sound of birds trilling and leaves rustling, some foul, damnably light tune winding up from the lower levels of the city to torment his patience. 

He was doing better than his _akrâgkharm_ , at least. Dwalin appeared to be fighting the urge to snap the arms of his chair clean in half. He had agreed to sit, at least. After the demonstration in the elf-lord’s lunar study, he had looked about ready to take one of his axes to the whole city. “Elvish sorcery,” he’d muttered under his breath at every turn, as if the plants themselves were spelled, which, Thorin had to concede, they probably were. The trickery of Elves ran deep, and he would not put it past them to have listening enchantments on the privies. 

“I would advise against this, Thorin Oakenshield,” Elrond said in his dry, cool tone. “There are many who would see the provocation of the dragon as…unwise.”

“You don’t even know if the dragon’s alive,” Balin said, face red with frustration where he sat on the other side of his brother. “And more to the point, I’m not sure how it’s any of your business.”

Fíli had not spoken since they met with Elrond earlier, his eyes distant, but pensive. Thorin had asked him to join in part to include him in matters which might concern him should the worst occur and he become king in the same way Thorin had, but it was mainly to distract him. His nephew had spent most of the hour since news of Bella’s awakening pacing outside her door, waiting impatiently to enter, before Dwalin had dragged him away with Kíli’s promise that he would check on her once she was ready to receive visitors.

_She’s awake_. 

The thought filtered through Thorin like warmth, and he settled in his fragile elvish chair. She’d most likely be bound to her bed for another day, or so he hoped she would see sense enough to rest that long, but she was awake. 

“I have to agree with Master Balin, my friend,” Gandalf said to Elrond, leaning forward with a scowl. “These dwarves have every right to seek their people’s ancestral home, and what evidence is there that the dragon survives? Two hundred years is a long time.”

“For some, maybe. But not for you, nor I, nor a dragon of Smaug’s reputation.” Elrond looked from Gandalf to Thorin, brow lifting. “Have the orcs on your tail not convinced you this quest for your home is not the simple endeavor you thought it would be? Darkness hounds your steps, Master Oakenshield. Fate led you here for a reason.”

“Fate led us nowhere,” Thorin said flatly. “It was Gandalf who tricked us past the threshold of your...home.”

“And it is a good thing he did,” Elrond mused, “or the hobbit might have met her death.”

“The hobbit has a name,” Dwalin growled. 

“You’re certain the doors must be opened on Durin’s Day?” Thorin asked before Dwalin could continue to antagonize their host. Mahal must indeed be smiling on him, for the wealth of patience which he seemed to have found of late. Or perhaps his mood was better than it had been in days, for some unknown reason. A reason upon which he did not wish to linger, lest he lose what sense was left to him.

“I am. It has been some centuries since I last read archaic khuzdul, but my mind retains some of its sharpness, I think.”

“That doesn’t give us much time,” Balin muttered, sending Thorin a hard look.

“No, it does not.” Elrond stared at Thorin, dark eyes sharp and searching. “It is a perilous journey.”

Thorin tensed. “You think us unworthy of the task?” 

“I think your task courts unnecessary attention.” He sighed. “But you are right in that I cannot stop you, nor would I, if I could. I _will_ ask how long I can expect you to remain in my home.” His mouth twitched. “My steward would like to know how much wine we can expect your Company to drink.”

Thorin looked to Balin, seeing the same resignation in his eyes. He wanted to leave later that night. They’d already lingered too long in this cursed vale, if the prophecy was meant to end on Durin’s Day. They had enough time if they made good on it, but only if nothing else happened to halt their tracks—a foolish enough hope. 

Elrond’s expression grew sharp. “Miss Baggins will no doubt need time to recover, if it is your intention to continue with her as your companion.”

Fíli looked up at that. “Of course that’s our intention.”

“I think you’ll find young Bella more hearty than you might expect, my old friend,” Gandalf said with a small smile. 

“Honestly,” a voice said from the hall, Thorin’s heart leaping into his throat at the sound of it, “you take one arrow to the shoulder and suddenly everyone is questioning your stamina.”

Bella stood in the doorway, arms on her hips, a look of tired, lovingly-expected annoyance on her face. 

Thorin rose before he realized what he was doing, the happy cries of Balin and Dwalin behind him a pleasant change to the silence of the city. She met his gaze, eyes widening at whatever she found in his face, before Fíli launched out of his seat. 

“What are you doing?” he fussed, stopping himself before he pulled her into a hug, though his hands hung in the air as if to catch her should she fall. “You should be asleep.”

“It sounds as if I’ve been sleeping for too long already, if you’re trying to sneak off without me,” she said with a frown, waving him off when he tried to help her walk. 

Thorin watched her closely, looking for some sign of the elf-lord’s ominous pronouncement that she might have changed in the purging of the arrow’s dark influence. She lacked her usual bounce and lightness, but seemed to have no great trouble traversing the distance between the hall and the table. Under her eyes were dark shadows, and she looked pale, but whole.  Nothing suggested she was different, apart from the slight pain evident in her expression. 

She met his gaze again, and the relief he felt at seeing her bright, black eyes must have shone on his face, because she muttered, “Perhaps I should be mortally wounded more often, for the lovely reception I’m getting.”

His cheeks burned. “It is good to see you well, Miss Baggins.”

She gave him another odd look before smiling warmly at Balin and Dwalin and sitting in the seat Fíli gave up for her. 

“I spoke too hastily, it seems,” Elrond said with a deep bow, looking at Bella with shining eyes that made Thorin instantly wary.

“Lord Elrond, I assume?” She inclined her head toward him. “Thank you. For saving my life, that is.” 

“I count it an honor to help the daughter of Belladonna Took.”

Her face went tight. “Yes, I heard you were…friends of a kind. She never told me about you.”

Thorin had the grace to cover his smile with a hand as Dwalin snorted.

“I only mean that I—ah, I wish she had. Though I’m sure it wasn’t out of any lack of fondness for you,” she finished with a grimace. 

“I take no offense, Miss Baggins,” Elrond said with a faint grin. “My home and its location are secrets we elves guard closely. I am sure she was simply respecting those wishes.”

Bella merely hummed in agreement. 

Thorin tried not to stare, but he couldn’t help it. Not only was she awake and her usual snappish self, she was insulting elves on accident.

Elrond glanced around the table, once again resting on Thorin. “Think on my council, Thorin Oakenshield, and if I can be of any more help, do not hesitate to ask.” His face lightened as he walked to Bella, ignoring Fíli’s warning look as he bowed and took her hand in a courtly gesture, which to Thorin spoke of ill intent. “I hope it is not impertinent to request a moment alone with you before you leave my home.”

Bella smiled, a faint crease in her brow. “Of course. That would be—nice.”

Elrond grinned in full, pressed a chaste kiss to her fingers—Thorin fought the urge to shove his boot into the elf’s face—and arched a brow at Gandalf. “A word, Mithrandir?”

Gandalf sighed and got to his feet. “I do wish you would have been quicker, my dear. Though I am sure your companions will fill you in on all the details.”

“Batty old man,” she muttered as he left with a wink to follow Elrond.

As soon as the elf and wizard were out of sight, Dwalin banged a hand on the table. “Ah, it’s good to see you up and about, lass. Gave us all a good scare, didn't you?”

“I’m not sure whether to be thrilled or worried, Miss Baggins,” Balin said with a fond smile. 

“That sounds about right,” Thorin murmured, grinning when she shot him a hard look.

“I should be offended you all thought I’d snuff it over a silly thing like getting shot with an arrow,” she said, though her levity was hindered somewhat by the tremble in her hands as she folded them in her lap. “It’s like you have no faith in me at all.”

“Quite the opposite,” Balin chuckled and shook his head, meeting Thorin’s gaze with a wink.

Before Thorin could so much as scowl at his interfering cousin, Fíli stood and said solemnly, “Bella Baggins, I am alive today because of you, because of your bravery and sacrifice.”

Balin and Dwalin froze, hearing an echo of the old words in Fíli’s pronouncement, and  Thorin’s eyes widened as he realized what his nephew was about to do. He thought for a moment about stopping him, though a voice whispered that it was right she be offered the blood-debt. 

He only hated that he hadn’t thought to do it himself before Fíli. 

Fíli took a deep breath and made to kneel. “I pledge—”

“Oh, enough of that,” Bella groaned, smacking his hand away as he reached for hers. “No. I don’t accept.”

Fíli blinked, expression frozen in a serious, furrowed brow. “I feel like I should have seen this coming.”

Her mouth twitched, though she did a good job of looking imperious. “You should have. Your brother already tried to pull this blood-debt business on me.”

“Great Maker preserve me,” Balin muttered into his hands. 

Fíli frowned. “Kíli offered you the blood-debt?”

“Yes, and I’ll tell you the same thing I told him.” She leaned forward and jabbed her finger into his chest. “I saved your life because I wanted to, you infuriating dwarf, not because I thought you should owe me something. And I’d do it again right now if I could, whether you offered me some silly oath or not.”

A smile pulled at Thorin’s lips as his nephew tried to think of some way to respond. Even in her recovery, snatched from the jaws of death itself, she burned so brightly.

“A blood-debt is not something to set aside lightly, lass,” Dwalin said gravely.

“I know it’s very important to you,” she gave Fíli a pat on the cheek and turned to the rest of them, “and I would never want to offend anyone by refusing something so sacred, but I won’t let anyone pledge their service to me, like I’m some great lady in a castle who needs protecting.” Her expression soured. “And I didn’t bring any handkerchiefs with me, so you’ll not be getting any of my lady favors, handkerchief or otherwise.”

Thorin grinned in full as Dwalin howled with laughter, Balin sighing while Fíli looked thoroughly uncomfortable. 

Bella rounded on Thorin, scowl tempered by a bright humor winking in her eyes. “I thought you’d be more concerned about the fact that both of your nephews, who are, as far as I know, your _only_ heirs, have decided to pledge themselves to me to be rid of you.”

Thorin leaned back, arching an eyebrow. “A blood-debt is sacred, yes, but a pledge to kin is a bond which cannot be broken by even Mahal himself.”

“So if I took them up on their offer and asked them for your head?”

“They would be honor-bound to refuse, or be cast out from proper Dwarven society, made petty and pariah.”

“Well then what’s the point?” she huffed, slumping back into her chair and wincing slightly. 

Balin took over the explanation of what the elf-lord had told them of the map, and Bella’s face went tight. Thorin watched her, searching for her reaction to the news that they would need to leave soon if they were to make it to the Lonely Mountain by Durin’s Day. 

The thought had hovered at the back of his mind while she lay ill—perhaps she would not want to continue with them. He’d seen her haunted look when she'd looked upon the orc-blade, the tremble in her lips and hands, the lost expression in her eyes as they fled across the moors with wargs at their backs. Burn brightly she might, but she was no warrior. He would not begrudge her the choice to return to her Shire. 

As if she heard his thoughts, she looked pointedly at him when Balin was finished. “Can I have a word with you? Alone?”

Before Fíli could protest, Thorin swallowed his apprehension. “Of course.” 

Fíli still seemed troubled as Dwalin steered him out of the room, as if he could tell by the look on Thorin's face what he was preparing for. Balin glanced between them with a lingering look, but left without a word.

Bella turned to him, face set, hands folded in her little lap after she tucked an errant brown curl behind her ear. 

He could not stop himself from tracing the curve of her cheek with his gaze, judging it against his memory to see if the wound she’d taken for his nephew had diminished her somehow. Had she lost some of her softness, or was he just imagining the harsher line of her jaw? It was still heart-shaped and full, but there seemed to be something of iron under her skin now, something hard. 

“I realize we haven’t had a chance to talk about,” she hesitated, tipping her chin up, and the spell was broken—her lips her once again were plump and soft, and pursed in readiness, “about the incident with the trolls.”

Thorin exhaled in surprise, smiling.

“What?” she asked at once, brow furrowed.

“You want to talk about the trolls?”

“I—thought you would have an opinion about the situation, yes.” Her frown deepened. “Why are you smiling?”

He shook his head, leaning forward. “You never say what I think you will, Miss Baggins.”

“You’re not upset.”

“Of course I am. Thank you for reminding me.”

“There’s no reason for you to be.”

“You were hurt,” he murmured. “That is reason enough.”

That drew her up short, hesitating before she continued, “I understand you think I’m a rash fool, and I might have paid better attention to my surroundings, but I won’t apologize.” She straightened, gave him a sour look. “I’m perfectly capable of handling—”

“Yourself, I know,” he said, a bit of his old frustration at her obstinance surfacing. His relief at her survival was quickly sloughing away, and he tried to keep his good humor. “I’m not upset because you survived an encounter with three hill-trolls. I’m upset because you shouldn’t have done it on your own.”

A blank look came over her face. “I—I didn’t think…”

“I know you didn’t.” Thorin considered her, remembering Fíli’s words what felt like a lifetime ago, chastising him for thinking she needed time alone. “I won’t pretend you don’t…vex me, Miss Baggins, or that your insistence on being contrary does not make me nervous, but I hate that I have made you think you cannot rely on your companions for help. You clearly escaped the trolls long enough to find three large beehives.” His mouth twitched into a frown at the memory. “You could have run back to camp. You needn’t have dispatched them on your own, impressive though it was.”

How close someone could stray to the edge of death without crossing over, and still make him feel as if his heart had forgotten how to beat. 

She watched him with narrowed eyes, as if waiting for him to shout. “You seemed to care little enough about my welfare when you scolded me for screaming in the river.”

“I seem to recall expressing my deep _concern_ for your welfare, as that was the reason I scolded you.”

“I thought you would have been angry.”

He paused. “You care what I think?”

“No,” she snapped, too quickly. “I just didn’t want to get into another shouting match with you while three trolls camped out in a cave waiting to eat you all.”

He closed his eyes, searching for the patience he had so recently employed with the elf-lord. “I don’t care about the trolls.”

“You just said you did.”

“Well, I don’t anymore.”

“Then why are we having this conversation?”

“I’m not sure,” he muttered, rubbing a hand over his chin. “I don’t care about the trolls beyond you getting hurt. You are a member of my Company, and I would not see any harm befall you.”

If anything, that seemed to make her even angrier. “Why the sudden change of heart?”

“What have I done to make you think I wished you harm?” he asked, unable to keep a level of incredulity from his tone. _Ridiculous halfling_ —

“You’ve done nothing but order me about and glower at me for the past month. Perhaps I just _assumed_.”

“You assumed wrong.”

She searched his face as her features softened, though her voice was just as biting as she said, “If this is just you feeling guilty about me almost dying, you can stop that right now. I don’t want your guilt.”

It took him a moment to find his voice, the reminder hitting too close to home. “Your actions to save my nephew were noble, and I will forever be in your debt because of them. He is my heir and kin, the closest thing I will likely ever have to a son. In saving him, you saved a piece of my heart. I would not think to belittle you by claiming any ownership of your motivations.”

Her stunned silence cut through him. With the sudden need to defend their lives and the endless wait of not knowing if she would die, he’d almost forgotten her words to him before storming off to the trolls, that she thought him a prideful tyrant, a ‘cultured brute.’ 

She might have said it to hurt him. He had no doubt she was capable of such cruelty, but he didn’t want to assume it was an empty insult.  Not when it made him feel like an intruder at her side. 

“I simply mean to say that you can rely on others.” He kept his voice cool as his chest emptied out with a feeling akin to rejection. The thought rankled him. Foolish beyond measure to tie his happiness to the whims of a woman prone to laughing at his discomfort. “You have friends in this Company, friends who were concerned about your welfare, as I was, and am. Take my nephews’ eagerness to tie themselves to you as evidence, if not my word.”  He hesitated, her continued silence making him uneasy. “The elf says you will need time to recover. I know the weapon which pierced you, and what the injury might mean for your health.”

She stiffened, a hollowness coming into her gaze. 

“I would understand if you chose to return to the Shire, for your own safety.”

“What?” she said loudly, voice catching on a raw emotion. 

He waited, watching fear flash across her expression before she controlled it. 

“Are you—” She swallowed, and started again. “Are you asking me to leave?”

The defiance in her eyes was tenuous, pulling at him, in the same way she’d pulled at him with her questions of love and loss in that dark hallway in Bree. “No,” he murmured, “and I will not.”

“Because I don’t want to leave,” she said firmly. “Unless…you want me to.”

“It doesn’t matter what I want.”

Ferocity hardened her mouth, and he was struck by the change in her face. From such soft features was born a passion that rivaled even the fiercest dwarf. Staring into her eyes, he found it hard to breathe. And yet...

Her lip quivered ever so slightly as she asked, “You think I want to remain where I’m not wanted?”

The question was just as barbed as anything else she’d said, but Thorin heard the shred of vulnerable truth in it. He saw again the woman staring out on an unknown stretch of land, wondering if it was mad to want more for her life than pretty hills and the gossip of others. T he sheer hypocrisy of it, hard and soft, biting and beseeching, kindled heat in his chest.

He didn’t know what propelled him to take her hand, but he did, moving despite his better judgement—slowly, watching her with keen eyes, ready to retreat if she decided to rake her claws against him.

She tensed, but didn’t draw back as he folded her small fingers in his. They shook slightly as he looked into her eyes. _Fragile hands for a woman whose gaze burns like wildfire._

“If my opinion mattered, which I know it doesn’t,” he added, watching her face carefully for some sign that his touch was unwanted, “I would not have you leave us so soon.”

Closer now, he could see the signs of her fatigue, the faint discoloration of bruising around her lips and eye, a tightness in her mouth which spoke to pain held back by pride. She put on a damn brave face, but she was hurting. 

Her throat bobbed. A line appeared in her brow. “If I go, who’ll take care of the damn ponies?”

He grimaced, though a part of him appreciated the attempt at humor.

“Wait, I didn’t even think…” She sagged, eyes closing slightly. “They’re dead, aren’t they?”

“We did not have time to search for them, but accounting for the beasts who pursued us…”

“That’s horrible," she groaned. "Oh, I’m so sad now.”

“You nearly die and treat it like an inconvenience, yet your heart bleeds for the ponies?”

“It’s your damn fault I grew attached.”

He chuckled. “My sincerest apologies.”

Her eyes sparked with mischief. “Hold on, did you just apologize to me?”

“Surely not.” He leaned away again, setting her hand back on her lap. Touching her while she looked at him with such intent was courting danger, and he at least tried to play at being a cautious man. Most of the time. “I think you’re hallucinating.”

“Yes,” she said dramatically, “why would the great Thorin Oakenshield apologize to a lowly old hobbit maid like me?”

He frowned. “You have never been lowly in your life, Bella Baggins.”

Her lips pursed, checking her smile before it grew as a blush broke out on her cheeks. 

He chased the feeling such a sight stirred inside him. “Might this great dwarf stoop so low as to thank the hobbit who saved his nephew?”

“Don’t you start, too,” she warned, though it lacked bite. “I’ve had enough sons of Durin offering their service to me today, thank you.”

“Alas, I would,” he said with a grin, “but my service is pledged to a different mistress in a faraway land, locked away by an evil dragon.”

“Sounds like the kind of job for a dour king and a dozen bothersome dwarves.”

“Perhaps with the help of a stubborn burglar. Might you point one my way?”

Her blush spread as she shifted in her seat and cleared her throat. He watched in the color blossom in fascination, this reaction so at odds with her cold anger toward him earlier. _Curious bird_ , he thought, deciding that the shifting elvish candlelight didn’t look so frail when shining in her eyes. 

“Can you be this nice to me in public, please?”

He pulled his mind back from idle thoughts better left unexamined. “What?”

“You’re always barking at me or scowling when we’re with the rest of the Company, and yet you’re almost tolerable when it’s just the two of us,” she said pointedly, looking straight into his eyes. “It makes it difficult to like you.”

Shame fought with discomfort as he recognized the truth of her words. “I…have not treated you well.” He would not tell her why, of course. It didn’t help that he didn’t rightly know himself. 

“No, you haven’t,” she mused. “Though, I might admit that I have been less than cordial to you. On occasion.”

“Perhaps if you hadn’t attacked me on first sight—”

She scowled and hit him on the arm. 

“Or perhaps I find it hard to like a woman who insists on hitting me whenever she likes. I am a king, Miss Baggins. I’m sure some would object to continued threats against my life.”

“Dwalin isn’t here right now, so I guess you’ll have to defend yourself.” She eyed him curiously. “Why do you insist on calling me that? It makes me feel like a tutor.”

Thorin’s smile was slow, a faint, reckless thought building at the back of his mind. Perhaps it was her presence, bright and alive, warring with the concern still swirling in his gut which made him bold. Or perhaps he was finally remembering that he was not a young buck unaccustomed to charming a woman toward whom he felt attraction.  As if his feelings in regard to this particular woman could be so easily classified. There was attraction there, even if it was a thorn-covered, smarting kind.

“A tutor?” he mused, holding her gaze. “You’re unlike any tutor I had as a child.”

Her brow arched. 

“You’re much fairer than the old dwarrows who taught me my numbers.”

He’d hoped to catch her off-guard, perhaps draw out more of that damn blush, but instead she snorted. “Are all men of Durin’s line shameless flirts?” she said, rising stiffly. He did not miss the smile she tried to hide, however. 

“Not just the men.”

“Wonderful.”

Thorin watched her closely, checking for signs of further injury. “Bella,” he said, feeling a thrill as her eyes flicked to him and then away again, as if she hadn’t actually expected him to listen, “I meant what I said about taking time to heal. I won’t stand by and watch you hurt yourself trying to keep up with the Company.”

“I—I think I’ll be fine.” She straightened, rolled her shoulders back, though her hand flew to the bandages peeking out from her dress as she winced. His eyes followed the slight dark discoloration of her veins, and he fought a shiver at the memory of them stained black with corruption. “I don’t think this will get any better by sitting on my ass. And as lovely as this place is, I’ve grown accustomed to dwarven sensibilities. I think I would die of boredom within a week.” She laughed at his wide, utterly pleased grin. “Is that all I have to do? Insult elves and you perk up like a dog at dinner?”

“There are a few other things I might suggest, if you were interested.”

“Please do. I’d be happy to tell you where to shove those things.”

He chuckled. “I had thought your brush with death might dull your tongue. I’m glad I was wrong.”

She fixed him with an imperious gaze, tilting her head like a bird might while watching a worm wriggling in the mud—calculating, anticipatory. “I think it would take more than death to dull my tongue, Thorin Oakenshield.”

He bowed his head, conceding defeat. For now. “For that, I am glad.”

She rocked back on her heels, the worn edges of her full green dress swaying slightly as she turned. “Walk me down to the Company. You can take the blame for why I’m so late in seeing them all.”

“A king’s duty is never finished.”

Her sharp trill of laughter made the airy halls and swaying branches of the trees seem almost homely. He followed after, watching golden brown curls escape from the braid swaying across her slight back, and wondering what they might feel like twisted around his fingers. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Khuzdul  
>  _akrâgkharm_ \- male that is no direct relation by blood, yet is regarded by one as a brother, holding him in high honor and offering an unshakable sense of loyalty, friendship and profound platonic love
> 
> "I Won't Say I'm In Love" is playing this whole time, btw. That's the music pissing Thorin off at the beginning. <3


	14. Victim of Romance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["I Was An Eagle" by Laura Marling](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Mi4mIkUK5o&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-&index=14)

The next morning, Bella sat sandwiched between Bofur and Fíli, trying not to scowl down at her breakfast, which consisted of some assortment of nuts, seeds, and drizzled leaf juice. “I never thought I would so thoroughly understand Bombur’s deep and abiding love of bacon,” she muttered.

Bofur chuckled as Fíli placed something before her that looked like a lump of mashed paper shaped into a brick. “I think we’ve got a few sausages left,” Bofur mused, examining a spoonful of his own breakfast with a weary expression, “if you want to roast something up. We could break a few of the chairs, make a night of it.”

“I’m sure that’s rude.” She bit into the thing everyone was calling lembas bread, and shrugged. “Well, this isn’t too bad.”

“Try eating it for every meal,” Fíli muttered under his breath. 

“I think any sustenance provided by our gracious hosts is above and beyond what we should expect, Master Fíli,” Gandalf said in a carrying voice from the end of the table. In the airy, open halls of Rivendell, where everything was smooth, curved lines and graceful, natural symmetry, the old wizard looked like a sore thumb covered in dust, and yet somehow perfectly suited to the timeless architecture—like a well-loved and rumpled tome of lewd puns one brings out after a few bottles of wine. 

Bella arched an eyebrow at him. “I think one should expect quite a lot from a host once one has been invited into their home. Why do you think I gave up all my food when you brought this lot to my doorstep?”

A wistful murmur spread around the table. Ori actually looked as if he might cry as he stared down at his dismal bowl.

“From the lips of hobbits does truth ring clear,” Balin called, raising his goblet to her in a solemn toast. 

“Burglar,” Thorin called as he walked into the open courtyard, “glad to see you’ve decided to join us after your extended nap. You had a few of my Company worried.”

His voice rang with its usual commanding air, but she caught the smile in his eyes, the slight twitch in his mouth. It was the only reason she bit her tongue. After their temporary peace last night, she guessed he was trying to tease her into frustration. 

She would never admit how much of a relief it was that he’d decided to stop glowering. 

“I have something for you,” he said, stopping behind her chair, with a half-lidded look of extreme amusement.

Eyeing him closely, she frowned. “If it’s not a roast rabbit, I don’t want it.”

He held out a fine leather sheath about the length of her arm, carved with curling elvish script in what might have been liquid moonstone, for all that it shined in the morning light. “If you insist on throwing yourself into danger at every turn, you’ll need an actual weapon. You shouldn’t need to steal my daggers from me.”

She grinned, remembering fondly the look of shock which had overwhelmed his expression the moment she’d wrapped her hands around his waist. She shouldn’t have been so surprised. He was wound so tight he probably found it uncomfortable to even look at a pair of melons. 

“I didn’t hear you protest at the time,” she mused, rather enjoying his narrowed eyes. Rising awkwardly, her shoulder still sore and unsteady, she reached out for the weapon. “Well, this is lovely,” she murmured, studying the beautiful script and the brilliant artistry of the sword’s hilt. 

Her grin fell at a sudden thought. “Thorin Oakenshield, did you steal this from our hosts? No wonder they’re feeding us bird food.”

His mouth twitched. _Someone is well-pleased with himself, isn’t he?_ “It was in the troll hoard. By rights, it was always yours. I’ve simply been keeping it safe for you until you roused yourself from bed.”

She gave him a scowl for good measure and pulled the blade from its sheath. “ _Oh_ my.”

It was a beautiful thing, made of brilliant steel which shimmered in the morning air. More intricate, broad-leafed designs curved along the pommel and the blade itself. It looked like a weapon out of the books she’d read as a child—an elegant, beautiful thing fit for a mighty warrior, a champion gilded in light.

“Looks like a butter knife,” Glóin called with a full mouth. 

She shot him a dark look over her shoulder, her fantasies cracked like a morning’s egg. “Watch your tongue, or I might cut _your_ butter, Glóin, son of Gróin, as there is no lack of it, you tremendous goat.”

Glóin choked on his lembas, but Dwalin laughed, seemingly unfazed. “It’s hobbit-sized.”

“It is,” she said proudly, testing it in her grip, as if she knew what an actual sword should feel like. It was heavy, but not too heavy, light enough to flip in her hand with some effort, though she dare not risk dropping it and giving the Company something else to laugh at.

“You think it’s a good idea giving her a sword, uncle?” Kíli said, leaning back with the feet of his chair a good foot off the ground and a smug smile across his mouth. “Bella’s proven herself more than capable of cutting you into ribbons with her words alone.”

“So ungrateful, the lot of them,” she murmured, holding the blade up to her ear as if she might hear it hum like a tuning fork. Some of the great swords of legend had been whispered to sing on occasion. “I think you’re beautiful. I would never sully you with some silly king’s blood. I’m sure his rank fluids would tarnish your marvelous gleam.”

“The burglar and I have come to an understanding,” Thorin mused. 

“Oh, have we?” Bella frowned at him as she carefully sheathed her new, lovely weapon. “Hold on, if everything in that troll hoard is mine by rights, how come you and Gandalf have pretty new swords as well? I don’t remember giving them to you. _I’m_ the burglar, Thorin Oakenshield.” She held out her hand, cocking her head, unable to keep a grin from her lips. “Give up your blade, thief, or I shall be forced to skewer you.”

Gandalf hemmed and hawed, but purposefully did not meet her eye. Thorin smiled wide—and the effect it had on his face so distracted her that she had to focus as he pulled the sword from his waist, revealing something quite a bit larger than her own hobbit-sized blade. 

He made a show of looking her up and down, quite like he had the first night he’d spent in Bag End, though it was marred slightly by the lingering at her waist, and the smiling. “Can you hold it?”

She eyed the sword, and then him, knowing full well she’d probably collapse under the weight if she so much as tried to lift it. “Perhaps I’ll loan it to you.”

“I shall try to be worthy of your trust,” he said over a peel of laughter from the Company.

She sat, trying not to smile as Thorin rounded the table and casually nudged Kíli’s chair, sending him tipping backward with a yelp.

“You know how to wield a sword?” Fíli asked, innocently enough, though she caught the start of something winking in his eyes. No doubt he wished to assert his maturity over her. Bless him, he did try. 

Tucking into her disappointing nut-medley, she said demurely, “I’m not sure that it’s any of your business, Fíli, but I’ll have you know that I’ve never received any complaints.”

The table erupted into more laughter as Fíli’s expression soured. 

“Such a wanton tongue you’ve developed, Bella Baggins,” Gandalf asked, face scrunched in discomfort. “Whatever happened to the innocent little girl I once knew?”

“You shoved a bunch of dwarves into her smial.”

“Into her what?” Ori asked hesitantly. 

“That’s what hobbits call their holes in the ground,” Balin said, face red with laughter.

“Only on special occasions,” Bella said with a little grin, finishing off her lembas bread and stealing the last of Fíli’s share. “And only after a bit of wine.”

“Miss Baggins will corrupt us all if we’re not careful,” Thorin said thoughtfully, his eyes gleaming and intent in the morning sun. 

“Honestly,” she said, purposefully not looking at him any longer than was necessary, “it can’t be that hard. You all manage it fine.”

“That kind of attitude will get you hurt,” Fíli said with a disapproving frown. “You’ll need proper training.”

“Oh, and who’s going to train me?” She grinned. “You?”

He puffed up a bit, that Durin pride surfacing in his tight expression. “Why not?”

“Because you might be older than I am in the technical sense, but I am wiser, and I shudder at the idea of accepting any kind of criticism from you.” She gave him a wink to cut her words. “Perhaps I’ll take my time to decide and keep you all guessing. Maybe you’ll all compete for the privilege. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“Don’t have Bifur train you,” Bofur said with a wide smile at his brother. “Just a friendly suggestion.”

Bella eyed the axe in Bifur’s head. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“I don’t know,” Dwalin mused, sweeping a clinical eye over her. “I don’t think you’ve got the discipline, lass.”

“Discipline?” She scowled. “Because you’re so disciplined yourself?”

“Who do you think trained young Masters Fíli and Kíli?”

“You think these dunderheads have more discipline than I do? They’ve barely enough sense between the two of them to piss straight.”

“Such a kind-hearted hobbit,” Fíli said with the tired air of a farmer praising a troublesome, yet well-bred hog. “So sweet, so poised. I feel so fortunate to call her a friend.”

Kíli grinned, once again leaning back in his chair. “She has a point. Your head is very dunder-shaped, brother.”

The table fell to arguing what, exactly, the shape of a dunder was, but Bella didn’t look away from Dwalin, meeting and holding his challenge. His large, broken nose twitched as his beady eyes grew bright. The hint of a grin pulled at his mouth, and he shrugged. “Suppose I don’t have anything better to do. Though you’ll find I am not so easily cowed as the princelings, lass.”

Bella smiled widely, already imagining herself brandishing her fine sword like a warrior of legend. Let them write tales of her, like her long-past ancestor, the great Bullroarer. _Fanciful old bird_ , she scolded herself, but only mildly. “I look forward to proving you wrong.”

“Careful,” Thorin said, “the process of being proven wrong by Bella Baggins is not a pleasant one.”

She snatched up an apple from Bofur’s plate and chucked it at his head. Thorin, damn him and his quick reflexes, merely caught it with a sly grin. “Fíli was right about your generous spirit, burglar.”

Her eyes narrowed in displeasure—he had to be so smug about everything—but she had a hard time looking away from him as the meal continued and they discussed their plans. 

With her injuries mostly healed apart from her shoulder, they could leave any time they wanted, and yet Thorin had announced last night, to everyone’s great and loud disappointment, that they would remain in Rivendell another week to resupply and prepare for the hard journey across the mountains. 

She knew the real reason for their extended stay, as did the rest, which explained their reluctant acceptance with only a few minutes’ grumbling. He didn’t want her to hurt herself by setting out right away. 

It was kind, far kinder of him than she’d expected. Although that made her feel guilty. Thorin Oakenshield was not cruel, not in the way she’d made him out to be, and certainly not in the way she would have expected of a cold, pompous king raised to believe he was better than everyone else simply because of his parentage. He loved his family and his friends fiercely, and perhaps he had a single-minded drive to reclaim his home which sometimes turned his severity into outright bullying, but he was not unduly harsh. Not most of the time, anyway. With her mind clear of questions about his mood and temper, and her own, rather embarrassing thoughts better left unexamined, she could admit that she’d, perhaps, been a bit cruel herself. And she certainly didn’t mind the obvious interest in his eyes now, though she still wondered what it truly was.

She let her gaze linger on his for a moment as his brow furrowed in a silent question, the pretty elvish sky looking almost frail in comparison to his royal-blue eyes, before returning to her food, stubbornly ignoring the faint heat brushing her cheeks.

 

~ ✧ ~

 

The days passed with a strange and faint malaise. It did Bella good to rest, even though she would not admit it to a smug, overprotective Fíli, who had only grown more unbearably protective after saving his life. But there was something restless in her heart, something which had always been there fluttering and fussing, making it hard to spend more than a few months in Hobbiton without wanting to tear off into the wilds buck-naked and screaming. She thought at first it was simply her Company which had made her more rugged, teasing out that Tookish fire inside her with their longing for adventure and mountains and wilderness, but no—they were rugged to a degree, of course, but all of her dwarves were a bit softer under all that dirt and armor than she had initially expected them to be. 

Glóin, whom she’d thought was nothing more than a proud, noble warrior very much in love with his wife, obviously, as more conversation only convinced her that Dâgri must have been a goddess incarnate, to warrant such praise, but to her surprise, he turned out to be a decent seamstress, and had done her the favor of fixing up her dresses while lamenting the fact that she’d never found the patience to learn more than simple stitching. Balin was a lousy cheat at cards, but brilliant at word puzzles, and always a bit too pleased with himself when he thought of something he guessed she wouldn’t understand, though she won him out more often than not—her father had been a savant at riddles, and she’d inherited some of his skill, to her immense pride. Dwalin was remarkably patient with her while training, acting more like a strict mother hen than a battle-hardened soldier. Indeed, she’d started purposefully poking at his ego, if only to get a rise from him to soothe her own aching limbs, but he simply smiled and drilled her again, correcting her grip and stance, lamenting her bare feet for the umpteenth time as “no soldier worth their blade runs into battle with their _toes_ hanging out for anyone to chop off, for Durin’s sake.”

All of them had their little quirks—Ori dog-eared the pages of his books, while Bofur chewed on the ends of his pipes, Óin could draw beautifully rendered diagrams of plants and animals, while Dori was both the fussiest dwarf she had ever met, and could handily beat Dwalin in an arm-wrestling competition. Bifur, bless him, seemed to enjoy dancing to music of his own making when left alone, while Bombur had a bit of a flair for poetry, composing a heartfelt and stirring lament to the lack of potatoes in Rivendell that had many of the Company openly weeping on their fifth night of greens and ancient grains. Nori was the only one who continued to be something of a mystery to her, keeping to himself and giving her short-lipped answers to her attempts at conversation which never seemed cold, but did discourage her from prying. The day she caught him smiling in a rather moon-eyed expression after Bofur told a particularly horrible joke, however, she began to suspect that there was a heart under that stone-faced mask and ridiculous hairdo after all. 

No, it could not be her Company making her restless. There was something unwinding inside her the longer she spent away from the Shire. Something which frightened, and excited her, like hanging off a tall branch and shouting into the whip-cold winds coming down from the wild north where monsters roamed and stories grew like trees to brush the starry night sky. She had known for a long time that she didn’t belong to Hobbiton, to the Shire of her father, and her father’s family, not really, but she’d always been afraid to leave in case she was wrong. And where would she have gone? Traveling with humans? Trailing after Gandalf’s muddy skirts? Spending time with her cousins in Buckland and Green Hill Country only served to remind her of her mother, and the home Belladonna had been able to accept after her own remarkable youth. 

This quest had given Bella the opportunity she’d been waiting for, but it wasn’t until she had time to sit and breathe that she truly understood how much she had changed. The simple life of the elves—reading, playing music, sitting and staring out over a valley brushed in perpetual autumn—grew dull within a few hours. It was too like her old life. Her soft green armchair and her warm, crackling fireplace might as well have been on the other side of the Sundering Sea, but she didn’t miss them. Not in the bone deep, heart-aching, reaching out with one hand always behind her way she thought she might miss them, if she let herself leave. If she’d finally drummed up the courage.

And perhaps it was this that troubled her most of all. Because she should miss _something_ , shouldn’t she? She’d told Fíli of the dew-flecked hills rolling green into the mouth of the sun itself, the gentle, pleasant breeze, and the rainbow of flowers in every perfectly mellow shade and hue, but she didn’t long for them. She didn’t dream of them at night as she lay on her rock hard bedroll and lumpy pillow. She didn’t walk across this harsh, rocky land fit for bigger peoples and darker hearts thinking longingly of her neat little garden and her prized chickens and her small, utterly simple life. No, all this hardship only seemed to wake something else inside her, something that was burning for more. She was _feeling_ for the first time in a long while, and whether that was fear or doubt or reckless abandon, it was intoxicating.

It should have been harder to stay away. She should have hesitated when Thorin asked her if she wanted to go home or remain in Rivendell. Just for a second, she should have considered what she’d given up to throw herself into danger with practical strangers and a world less considerate of an insignificant hobbit than the wind considered the scent of a flower. 

But she hadn’t. Not even for a second. _Perhaps there’s something of cleverness in that old batty wizard’s head after all._

“Have I lost you, Bella?”

She blinked, setting her tea cup down noisily on its saucer in a way which would have made her Aunt Donnamira rap her knuckles for impropriety. 

Arwen watched her fondly, that ever-present, mercurial smile playing at the corner of her lips. “You don’t have to sit with me, should you wish to leave.”

“No, no,” Bella mumbled, sitting up straighter and grabbing a bit of seed-cake off the plate before her, “it’s not you. I’m sorry, Arwen. My mind has a way of wandering off if I don’t keep it on a tight leash.”

The afternoon was beautiful, like every other afternoon had been. The warm colors of the vale shifted softly, as if a sheen of pearlescent light had been settled over every leaf and bush, every slow-running waterfall and winding, leaf-strewn path. One might lose themselves forever to the gentle, whisper-delicate music of Rivendell, and be glad for it. One day, she wanted to return, after this burning in her heart had quieted down a bit and she could truly appreciate this magic.

“I’ve found that wandering minds tend to stray where their owners would rather not follow.” Arwen placed her own cup elegantly down on the table, leaning forward with kind, inviting eyes. “Come, let us walk, and you can tell me what occupies your thoughts.”

Bella rose and followed her down the paths to the lower forest floor, where the trees arched over them in a grace which must have been crafted. Nothing could have grown so perfectly if left to its own devices. She might have only inherited a drop of her father’s green thumb, but she knew that plants and trees and all the growing things of the world had a way of finding their own path, no matter how diligently you laid one out for them. “Is this magic?” Bella asked before she could stop herself, motioning to the trees, “or are you all just especially masterful gardeners?”

“A bit of both, I think.” Arwen shot her a grin. “You should ask my father. He fancies himself an artist when it comes to the layout of this place. No doubt he’d be thrilled to hear you enjoy it.”

Bella frowned, picking a few leaves from the lower hanging branches, weaving them together absently as she had a tendency to do when trying to tame her thoughts. “The whole place?”

“Oh, yes. He built Rivendell from the ground up. Not himself, of course, but all this stems from his mind and direction, and he has been this valley’s caretaker ever since he came upon it many, many years ago. Before my time, to be sure.”

Bella blinked, trying to reconcile the thousands of years it must have taken him to perform such a feat with the slightly weary, slightly wicked man who liked to wink at her over his wine glass after making a sly comment about dwarven sensibilities. Really, staying a few extra days in Rivendell had been worth it to see Thorin try his best not to smash his food into the elf’s face every time he remarked sideways about the apparent deficiencies of dwarven craftsmanship. Suddenly the perfection of this place took on a new light. Elrond _would_ like to keep all his ducks in a row, so to speak. 

She realized after a moment that Arwen had stopped walking, and found the elf staring down at her hands with a small, sad smile. 

“I always found it strange,” Arwen murmured, plucking a few long-stemmed white lilies from the edge of the path and curling them around her long, alabaster fingers, “how devoted your mother was to her little rituals. She seemed to have developed most of them herself. How she loved to wax at length about her ideas of gods and fairies and magic, and her place in the grander scheme of things. I half-expected her to leap up into the air one day and join the sun as a sister, she spoke so passionately. I wonder…” She trailed off, and shook her head. “You must forgive me. I had not learned of her passing until Gandalf told me. Grief still holds sway over my memory of her.”

Bella accepted the flowers from Arwen, looking down and threading the lilies in with the silver leaves as she tried to find her voice. She split a few of the wider stems to braid them together, knowing exactly what Arwen spoke of—Bella had been her mother’s most avid devotee, no matter that she didn’t hold with most of the nonsense she spouted, especially near the end. 

“You said she helped you through a hard time,” she murmured, speaking around the hole in her heart.

A line creased the elf’s brow. Arwen looked young as she sighed, a faraway longing taking hold in her eyes. “Heartbreak, of a kind.”

Bella tried not to look too interested. Damn her for being at least partly a Baggins—terrible gossips, the lot of them. “Did you do the breaking, or were you the one being broken?”

Arwen blinked and laughed after a moment’s consideration. “Both.”

“Ah,” Bella said, for she could think of nothing else to say which would not be outright nosing into business not hers to nose. “Kneel down a bit so I can put this in your hair.”

Arwen looked bemused, but obeyed. “I thought the weavings were for spirits.”

“Only for the ones in the Shire. I’m sure the spirits here wouldn’t want my silly flowers, used to grand artistry and elvish magic. Hobbit craft would probably send them all into fits of giggles.” She held up what she’d made, a crown of sorts, and grinned. “This one’s for you.”

Arwen’s face went slack with surprise, her eyes wide. “What of yours?”

Bella’s mouth twitched. “I’m making mine next, obviously. Be rather rude of me to craft a crown for myself first before you.” It looked lovely on her, as everything did, probably—dark green and white sitting on her straight brown hair. “Careful. You don’t have a bird’s nest of curls to keep it from falling off your head.”

“I don’t know if I’m worthy of such a gift,” Arwen murmured, touching the flowers with careful fingers. Indeed, the elf did look humbled, though Bella couldn’t think why. It was just flowers.

“Of course you are. Every woman deserves to be a queen once in a while.” Bella worried her lower lip between her teeth, trying not to pry too deeply. She barely knew Arwen, though they’d spent enough time together over the past few days. It was just that she hadn’t spoken to another woman in such a long time, it was nice to hear about something other than oil for curing leather or someone or other’s irregular bowel movements. Her dwarves might be gentler than one might expect, but they were still men. “Did your…ah, partner—”

“She left for the Undying Lands,” Arwen said, rising and continuing down the path. As she spoke, she picked out flowers seemingly from nothing, red fireweed and pink starflower, even a few violet coneflowers, all of them hiding amidst the bushes and trees of the burnished forest path, and handed them over to Bella with an air of a jeweler displaying gems to a client. “I chose to remain in Middle-earth. Our desires were no longer compatible and so…” She trailed off with a sigh. “It is the way of things, sometimes. I have never been interested in traveling West with my brethren, but as time waxes, and more of my people retire, I sometimes wonder if my love of this corner of the world isn’t holding me back.”

While the matter at hand might be grander than anything Bella had ever experienced before, the problem rang so clear to her own experience that she could not help but scowl in immediate sympathy. “The lives of elves are far beyond my comprehension, I know,” she started in a sour voice, “but there’s nothing wrong with knowing what you want, and what you don’t. If I can be frank, Arwen—”

“I would have you be nothing else, Bella,” Arwen said, grinning down at her.

“Knowing what you want is a feat in and of itself. It might lead to loneliness, but it’s a far sight better than living your whole life constantly second-guessing your feelings.”

“Very wise. If you might allow me also to be frank—”

“Obviously.”

“Perhaps you should take your own advice.”

Bella snorted, both glad and a bit annoyed to have found the one elf whom she might commiserate with in this wide, strange world. The realm of gods and fairies indeed. Elves were just taller, older, a bit more ethereal versions of hobbits, it seemed. “Perhaps I should,” she said wryly. She nicked herself on a small thorn in her weaving, and sucked on her thumb. “Bugger. If your father’s so skilled he can get all of these plants to grow in the same place, he should have done something about the thorns.”

“You should tell him that tonight at dinner. He does so enjoy constructive criticism.”

Bella grinned and settled the flower crown on her head, fluffing up her curls a bit to help it stay put. “There.”

“And what a pair of queens we are,” Arwen mused, waving a lazy bee away from Bella’s ear. “I do hope you’ll return once your dwarves take their kingdom back,” she added rather suddenly, taking Bella by surprise. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had anyone so wise to talk to.”

“Oh, yes,” Bella smiled, blushing a bit at the idea that Arwen valued her company, “I have half a mind to raid your library, and I’m afraid I won’t get too far in the few days I have left.”

“That hasn’t stopped your young friend from perusing the shelves when he thinks no one is looking. The one with the strange hair and large doe eyes,” she added at Bella’s blank expression. 

“Ori?” she asked, laughing at the thought of him sneaking past anything, let alone an elf. Boy might as well have had feet sunk into iron pails. “The little rascal. And he made such a fuss about staying here and having to eat anything green for more than a day.”

Arwen’s eyes twinkled with mirth. “He seems gentle enough.”

“If anything, Ori has probably returned your books in better condition than they were when he took—” 

She broke off as voices reached them over a soft-trickling fountain. Within a few steps, the path opened up to a small, secluded clearing. A single bench rested in a circle of cobblestones overgrown with grass and vines where two figures sat talking. One was a gangly, slight boy with long brown hair and large grey eyes Bella had seen sometimes walking alone through the halls of Rivendell. The other, to her mixed pleasure and discomfort, was Thorin. 

Seated in the muted light of Rivendell, looking cleaner than she had ever seen him look before, he looked…regal. For the first time in a long while, she saw the noble dwarf under all that ego and hardened exterior, the dwarf with gleaming silver clasps in his hair, and well-worn rings on his fingers, the few bits of finery at his waist and wrists seeming like more wealth than all that could ever be found in the Shire. There was something, she had to admit, which breathed of royalty on him, no matter how much he disliked being reminded of his title. He had a book folded on his lap, and was seated in some small degree of comfort, as much as he would allow himself while he was still within elvish borders. There was even a softness to him, or perhaps a calm, a sense of peace, as he seemed to be speaking congenially to the boy.

The sight tweaked at something in Bella’s chest—something niggling and raw that she’d thought had died out after weeks of scowling and tense silence. 

The boy noticed them at once, a magnificent blush breaking out on his cheeks. “Lady Arwen, I was—”

“Avoiding your afternoon tutor, Estel.” Arwen was not smiling, but Bella could hear the amusement in her voice. “What will Glorfindel think, when he arrives to find your sword and shield abandoned by your bed and you nowhere to be seen?”

The boy swallowed, eyes dancing to Bella with a quiet interest. “I imagine he will enjoy the easy sport of finding me. He does enjoy reminding me of a warrior’s discipline. I would hate to deprive him of the opportunity with my diligence.”

Thorin snorted, rising to his feet and giving Bella an odd look. 

“I would be happy to pass along your eagerness for a more thorough instruction in this area.” Arwen’s eyes narrowed as the boy’s lips tugged at the sides. “Though if you find yourself with so much time on your hands, perhaps I should assist in your studies.”

He cleared his throat. “I would not ask you to take that upon yourself.”

“Only because you know I am more strict.”

“And thorough,” he added with a slight frown. 

“Don’t neglect your education, boy,” Thorin said with something that almost resembled an easy smile. “It feels like torture now, but it well help you one day when you’re least expecting it. Trust me on this.”

“Very wise, your majesty.” Arwen bowed her head at Thorin’s slight discomfort, and turned a small smile on Bella. “I will have to cut our afternoon short, Bella. Estel cannot be trusted to conduct himself with responsibility, it seems.”

Bella eyed the boy’s growing blush, and grinned, wondering if he might not prefer this outcome after all. _Kíli’s not the only one with an eye for elvish beauty, then._ “Far be it from me to stand in the way of scholarship.”

“We haven’t met,” the boy said, giving her a short, awkward bow, eyeing her with that same lingering interest. “You are the hobbit who took the Morgul-arrow.”

Arwen’s eyes went sharp, and she said something short in elvish. 

“Ah, yes,” Bella said, guessing Arwen had chastised him, though she didn’t mind. She appreciated frankness without judgement. “I am. It’s not as interesting as it sounds, I assure you.”

The boy looked uncomfortable, but murmured, “You survived a poison which has claimed the lives of many thought to be invincible. It was no mean feat, my lady. Most are not strong enough to withstand so powerful a darkness. I commend you.”

Bella blinked, trying not to feel Thorin’s heavy gaze on her cheek. Rather serious words for a boy with spots still dusting his young face. Looking closer, she saw that his ears were rounded. A human boy living in an elvish city—curious. “Yes, well, I’d imagine not many hobbits have had reason to fight these nasty fellows and their poison, or you might not think it so impressive. I’m hardly the most stubborn of my kind. I had a cousin once who lost his hand to a terrible accident in his mill. Got chopped clean off when a tilling blade spun out of control. He was back at work the next week, happy as you please, with a smile on his face and a kick in the shin to anyone who asked him where he’d misplaced his hand.”

Thorin seemed to be fighting a smile as the boy grimaced. 

“We should all beg for a bit of hobbit endurance,” Arwen murmured, giving her a quick wink as she pressed a hand to the boy’s shoulders and steered him out of the clearing. “I hope to see you both at dinner this evening. My father told me he is planning something extravagant for your penultimate meal.”

Bella swallowed her discomfort at the boy’s line of questioning, fighting an urge to rub at her slow-throbbing shoulder. The damn thing just wouldn’t stop hurting, no matter how much she stretched and soothed it with poultices. It didn’t help when people tried to make it into some grand heroic feat. To her eyes, all she’d done was sleep a bit longer than she would otherwise have.

“If that elf tries to feed me a pie of grass, I worry at my restraint.”

She found Thorin watching her closely, a slight furrow in his brow. “You know he’s doing it to annoy you,” she muttered, suddenly conscious of the fact that they were alone. “Elrond is just as much a nuisance as Gandalf, he’s just better at hiding it.”

“You know him so well after only a week?”

She scowled. “If you didn’t have ten swords shoved up your ass all the time, you’d have figured that out too.”

Thorin grinned. 

“Honestly, why you insist on maintaining your rigid prejudices is beyond me. I know you’re smarter than that. It’s like everyone outside the Shire is determined to be stupid.”

“I’m starting to be glad for the Shire’s isolationist tendencies. If the rest of your people are half as keen as you, we would all be living under thick, hairy feet.”

“And you’d be happier for it.” She fought a smile as she eyed the book sitting on the bench. “The old king can read. Color me astonished.”

His face went tight, almost like he was embarrassed, but then he sighed. “Your praise is fickle, burglar. One moment offered so freely, and the next plucked from my reach with a miser’s cunning.”

“Maybe I just want you to work for it.”

His head tilted ever so slightly to the side, and his eyes got that half-lidded smirk to them which always made the butterflies in her stomach sit up and take notice. “Strange that I am considering just what such work might entail.”

Did he…mean what she thought he meant? “Strange, indeed. And getting stranger by the second.” She cleared her throat, fighting the heat rising up her neck. “What is the book, then? Something dry and boring, I should expect.”

Something about his posture shifted, and a look of discomfort crossed his face. “It’s…something the boy left for me. Strange child,” he added as he showed her the book, as if that might explain away its presence.

Her brow lifted as she read the title— _The Tale of Beren and Lúthien_. “Sweet Shire, how romantic.”

But she shouldn’t have been surprised. Thorin had talked of love with a poet’s tongue, even if he was a hard-mouthed brute most of the time. He was just…stern, and used to getting his own way. And he had a tendency to shove his own foot into his mouth whenever he was angry, but he wasn’t uncultured. He was a king, after all. It made sense that he read poetry, from the way he spoke sometimes—

“That suites you.”

She looked up with a start, and found him eyeing her flower crown with narrowed eyes. “Oh, does it?” She crossed her arms peevishly. “I suppose crowns made of flowers are nothing compared to those made of cold gems and hard metal. The one waiting for you in Erebor must be grand indeed, no doubt equaling the weight of a small olefant and costing more than most common folk would be lucky to see in their entire lifetime.”

Annoyance twisted his features. “Are you so incapable of taking a compliment that you must insult me instead?”

She frowned. A compliment? “You weren’t poking fun?”

“Not in this case, no.” His expression cleared, though something still lingered in his eyes, a kind of hesitation.

“Well.” Her frown deepened. “Thank you, then.”

He snorted. “A more gracious woman I have never met, Bella Baggins.”

“And you wonder why I think you’re insulting me all the time.” His jaw feathered, and her frown smoothed. She knew she shouldn’t tease him, but sometimes it was just too easy. That feeling, fluttering and fragile, ghosted through her chest again, and she remembered a quiet darkness of flickering candlelight, heart full of a strange keening at the passion-soft words of a solemn, serious king. “I suppose I simply have yet to understand you, Thorin Oakenshield.”

He stilled in the act of smoothing his hair, and met her gaze, understanding her echo of his sentiment that night in the Prancing Pony, what felt like months and months ago now. His eyes darted between hers, and grew intense. “I am not trying to be elusive.”

She arched an eyebrow, feeling the silent clearing take on a taut, hushed feeling. “You couldn’t be elusive if you tried.”

He laughed softly, and his tension relaxed. Hers only seemed to coil tighter at his next question. “Is that for your spirits or for you?” he asked nodding toward her flowers.

“Ah,” she said, shifting a bit on her feet before she realized what she was doing, “for me. My mother used to make them for me when I was feeling particularly troublesome. It’s a comfort, I suppose.”

“Your mother is well known here.”

“She is. Of course, I had no idea she’d even left the Shire, so…” Her throat grew dry. The past few months had seen more talk of her mother than the past decade, and it was starting to make the tight weave around her heart fray. Her mother’s shade seemed to hang over this vale, and while Bella would never begrudge the memory of her mother, it made things…harder. “I guess I just never realized she lived such a full life.” 

“I am sorry to have lost the chance to know her.”

She stared, searching for words as she realized he was being utterly sincere. “She was rather frivolous. I’m not sure you would have liked her, to be honest.”

“Don’t discredit me so easily,” he murmured.

“No, I didn’t mean that.” She looked down, his gaze heavy on her cheek. “I only meant that she was somewhat—difficult to handle. Goodness knows I had my own troubles with her. She lived in a world of her own. My father was the only one who ever got her to come back from her daydreams, really.”

“You miss her.”

Bella smiled sadly, and found her tension unwinding at the understanding in his eyes. “Terribly. Do you, ah, miss your father?”

He took a while to respond, conflict flashing across his eyes. “Of course. But, I never knew him as a man. After—” He frowned. “I had to grow up quickly, after my grandfather died, and my father inherited the crown. He left to reclaim Erebor when I was fifty, and I never saw him again.”

She blinked, trying to do the math in her head. “That was…over a century ago?”

A disbelieving smile pulled at his lips. “It was. Almost one hundred and fifty years. And to save you the trouble—yes, I am old.”

Bella laughed in surprise, shaking her head. “Old isn’t a bad thing. Better to have experienced something of the world.”

He tilted his head in consideration. “A compliment, and unforced. My luck continues to hold.”

“Watch it,” she murmured, fingering an errant flower and tucking it back into place with the rest. She tried not to notice the way his eyes followed her fingers. “Ah, I think I’m heading back up. I feel a bit peckish.”

“I’ll join you,” he said, voice rough. “I think I’ve had enough trickling ambience for today. If—that is all right,” he added, not gracefully. 

She fought a smile as she gave him a mocking curtsey. “Of course, _your majesty_.”

“If you intend to dissuade me from your company, it won’t work, burglar.”

“We’ll see.”

Thorin’s mouth twitched as he fell into step beside her. “One day you might find that these challenges you bring upon yourself outmatch even your dogged obstinance.”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re a hypocrite?”

Bella smiled in full at his bark of laughter, letting her gaze wander amongst the lovely trees and shifting light of the leaf-strewn path. 

She was coming to realize Thorin Oakenshield was simply a man who liked control, and like any man unaccustomed to having that control questioned, he struggled with how to handle her. She had no intention of making it easy for him, of course, but something about his determination to understand her made her more sympathetic to his cause. Plus, she reasoned as he continued to watch her sideways in an obvious, intentional way as they made their way back up to the city proper, he seemed more willing to try than most. Vanity was not high up on her list of sins, but she enjoyed the attention like anyone else. 

Yes, she would let him try, and if a part of her warmed in the attention of those pale blue eyes and that damn, lovely smirk, she paid it little mind. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I am so sorry this took so long to update; the last few months have seen a veritable perfect storm of terrible things like health and family issues and it's been hard to focus on anything. I hope the extra long chapter makes up for my terrible track record. Reading your comments and getting your messages over on tumblr have been a godsend. You are all wonderful lovely kind people, and I am so thankful for your patience <3 I hope everyone's holidays are going okay!
> 
> (I know the dates and timelines are getting screwy in this fic, but just go with me. I am not sticking to canon, so I'd ask you to just take what I write as this fic's canon. Arwen is obviously still in Lothlórien at this point, because she doesn't meet baby Aragorn until he's all grown up, BUT I couldn't pass up the opportunity of having solemn-eyed kinglings complimenting Bella.)
> 
> Also! I started putting songs at the beginnings of the chapters for fun, and there are art links at the end of the fic, if you want to see what Bella looks like. Some wonderful people decided to make art of her and it nearly killed me.


	15. One Star Awake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["She Moved Through The Fair" by Cara Dillon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22-TcoJJRtE&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-&index=15)

On the night before they were to leave for the Misty Mountains, Thorin sat beside a fire Bofur and Nori had made of spare furniture and kindling, listening to the pleasant conversation of his Company drown out the oppressive silence of Rivendell. 

This week had pushed his patience to its limits, but it had been worth it.

His eyes wandered over the fire, to Bella scowling down at a web of tangled stitching in her hand while Glóin, at her side, employed all the patience of a father schooling his child. 

Her color had come back in full force, the dark circles vanishing from under her eyes, and she walked once more with a spring in her step. He’d watched her train with Dwalin a few times, likening the sight to a boar shouting drills at an irate sparrow. She had good instincts, better than Kíli’s, when he’d started training, though not so good as Fíli’s, but she had no patience to speak of, and so she brought undue risk onto herself by action alone, which he could have guessed before watching Dwalin try to pound some stillness into her. She hadn’t dropped her sword yet, at least, and that was more than he could say for some dwarven children.

They might have come to a tentative understanding, but he still grew nervous around her. Part of him knew _why_ , or guessed why, though it didn’t help. Balin had been right, as he usually was—he was too old to dance around this thing between them. Or this thing he _thought_ was between them. He had no real way of knowing if his strange infatuation with this bright, lovely, biting halfling was reciprocated, however, as whenever he worked up the courage to simply ask her about it, he flinched back from the imagined rejection. One hundred and ninety-five years old, and he’d been reduced to a youngling grown tongue-tied at the thought of a beautiful girl spurning his advances.

And if she didn’t reject him, what then? He was bound to Erebor, and she… 

He stopped himself short from finishing the thought as Bella threw down her stitching and declared in a voice akin to issuing a royal edict, “This is ridiculous. I couldn’t learn it as a girl, and I don’t see why it’s necessary for me to learn now.”

“If keeping your clothes from falling apart at the seams is ridiculous,” Glóin scolded, sounding like an old grandmother, “perhaps you are unworthy of the task. You test the strength of your flimsy hobbitish dresses with every breath you take, Miss Baggins. One day your toes and fingers will freeze off, and you will lament the moment you spurned my teachings. Mark my words.”

“My feet are fine, thank you.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask about that,” Bofur said with long, rather pointed look at Bella’s bare feet. “Is there a reason hobbits don’t wear shoes?”

Thorin had wondered the same. At first, he’d thought it was damnably stupid, to walk through the wilds barefoot. After watching her climb trees faster than squirrels and keep her balance trudging over fallen logs while the rest of them slogged through mud and frequently tripped into holes, however, he’d started to see the benefit. 

And there was something appealing about the thick, soft hair which sprouted over her feet and rose up her ankles, curling softly just like the small ringlets by her ears and at the nape of her— _Stop,_ he told himself, shifting uncomfortably in his seated position against a few damnably soft elvish pillows. _Quite enough of that._

Bella shrugged. “No need. They’re much tougher than yours, and shoes only trip me up.”

“Made of wood, then?” Kíli asked, leaning over his brother to reach curiously for her toes. “Ori and I have a bet—”

“Get your hands away from me, you abominable child,” she snapped, pulling the feet in question back and tucking them under the skirts of her dress. “Feet are amongst the most sensitive places on a hobbit’s person. You might as well reach out and fondle my breasts.”

Fíli shoved his brother off him as the makeshift camp broke out into scattered laughs. “Now, really, you’re just trying to make me uncomfortable.”

“Are they really that sensitive?” Thorin asked over the fire. He found himself wanting to know more about her, about her life, and her people—though every time he asked about the latter, she seemed to withdraw into herself. “Why not cover them up then?”

She cocked her head, mischief shining in her eyes like embers. “My breasts or my feet?”

Thorin grinned, the fire warming more than his skin.

“Well,” Dori said as he rose, shaking his head in a disapproving, if fond, manner, “I think that’s my cue to go to sleep.” He turned to Bella and sketched a small bow, “Good night, Miss Baggins.”

“I’ll join you.” Glóin patted Bella on the head. Thorin was surprised she didn’t bite his fingers off. “We’ll try the stitching again tomorrow, lass. Perhaps one day we’ll get you mending shirts, if Mahal sees fit to bless you with patience.” He nudged Óin as he passed, who had taken out his ear trumpet some time ago and proceeded to serenade them all with his bombastic snores. 

“You dwarves are such fragile, prudish creatures,” she mused, happily returning to her pipe without Glóin’s stitching to fill her hands. “Really, it’s like you’ve never discussed the sweeter pleasures of life before—”

“ _Please_ stop,” Fíli said, grimacing. “At least let me close up my ears before you launch into another discussion of your vigorous hobbitish proclivities.”

Bella puffed out her cheeks and blew elegant, perfectly round smoke rings onto Fíli’s face, making him cough through his nose. “If anything, you should get someone to free up those ears of yours. You could make candles with all that wax.”

Bofur picked idly at his lute all the while, the drifting notes lulling Thorin into memories of the Blue Mountains. He might have disliked the place, but the music he missed like a hole in his heart. It was a singular experience, listening to dwarven music played in dwarven halls, the sound reflected like light off a mirror as it reverberated through a mountain’s vast echoing halls, carved to capture the full might of majesty in the stone and the earth. The only formal events he’d enjoyed as a child were the concerts held by his grandmother at the turning of the year in the royal concert halls. Great pipes curling up into the vaulted ceilings, deep voices resonant with the hymns of old, had filled those holiest of places, calling out to Mahal in choruses of chords and vibrations of drums. In those prolonged moments, he had understood the truth and worth of his people. It was those moments he longed for most keenly when he thought of Erebor. 

He’d been told when he was younger that he might have made a decent harpist, had he time to devote to its practice. As with everything else after Erebor, the skill had faded with time as it had not been profitable nor kept him alive. Smithing was a trade valued by humans—music, not so much. And in truth, he wanted to keep those melodies to himself, to preserve those most sacred memories for himself and his people alone. The songs of his childhood played in his mind on those lucky nights he slept without darker dreams. He wondered, struck by the idea for the first time in nearly one hundred and seventy years, if his old harp had survived the dragon’s purge. 

“How many more of those do you have?” Bella asked, leaning her head on Fíli’s shoulder, lighting another bowl of her pipe with a practiced hand. 

Petty jealousy flashed through Thorin as he recognized the familiarity in her posture, the way Fíli shifted a bit to allow her more comfort, though he tried not to indulge in it. He should be happy she got along with his nephew, though he wished that perhaps he was the one in Fíli’s place. Or, perhaps he didn’t, as they seemed to be forming a friendship of sorts, and while friendship with Bella was growing more and more agreeable with every passing day in which she did not shout at him, it was not the first thing he wanted from her. And certainly not the last.

“More lutes?” Bofur’s eyes went wide as he patted a hand frantically against his chest, looked under his hat. “Mahal save me, I’ve misplaced the others!”

“More instruments, you ridiculous showman.” Bella breathed deep from her pipe and breathed a smoke ring at him, blowing it clear around his head to catch at the ears of his hat—really, she had an elegant mouth for the practice.

Thorin tried his best not to stare at the shape of her lips, pursed around the long, thin curve of her pipe, as his mind overturned that forbidden stone and found a wealth of thoughts best kept hidden beneath it.

Bofur preened at the compliment and counted on his hands. “I’ve got my flute, my lute, a penny-whistle, and a little drum I won from Nori in a game of cards.”

Nori scoffed, settling back on his mountain of pillows. “You cheated.”

Bofur leaned over and bopped his nose. “You’re just peeved you didn’t notice until the end of the game, you devilishly handsome rogue, you.”

Nori remained silent, but he watched Bofur with soft eyes. 

Thorin looked between the pair in surprise. “When did that happen?” he murmured to Dwalin, who was seated beside him and sharpening his axe.

Dwalin didn’t look up. “Some time before the Company gathered, I think, though I haven’t asked.”

“I doubt you’d get an honest answer from either,” Thorin mused with a smile. 

Dwalin grunted, though Thorin caught the hint of a shadow pass over his _akrâgkharm_ ’s eyes. 

He swallowed his interest, for now. Dwalin had never been one to share his personal struggles, romantic or otherwise, and he was even less likely to answer if pressed. He’d never even mentioned in passing an interest in anyone, so Thorin had assumed he wasn’t bothered. It wasn’t as if love had often been on Thorin’s mind, to bring it up in casual conversation. At least, not before a certain hobbit fell onto his head.

A commotion went up on the other side of the fire, drawing Thorin’s gaze as Bella said loudly, “No.”

“You cannot hint at having played the lute for years and not offer to share your talent, dear Bella,” Bofur said with a stern voice. “It would be the height of rudeness to tease and not regale us with the dulcet sounds of your sweet hobbit voice.”

“The dulcet sounds of my sweet hobbit voice have drawn ire from _some_ in the past.”

Thorin guessed her words were directed at him and grinned. “You play, burglar?”

Her mouth tightened, but she didn’t give him the scowl he’d expected. Instead her expression smoothed, and her eyes went distant as she stared into the fire. “Not for a long time.”

“All the more reason,” Bofur said with a kind smile. “I’d love to hear a jaunty hobbit tune. Something about vegetables and tiny woodland creatures, I’m sure.”

She snorted. “I don’t know any of those. Besides, most hobbit music is pulled from folktales about tricksters stealing crops and being punished by the wise and kindly Thain.”

“So, I was right on the vegetables, at least.” Bofur nudged her with his elbow. “You must have something you’d be willing to share.”

Bella stared long into the fire, before she sighed and exchanged her pipe for his lute, straightening as she settled it onto her lap. “Before anyone makes a smart comment—yes, this is a bit bigger than I’m used to.” Her mouth tightened and she rotated her shoulder, as if it pained her. “And no laughing at the rust in my voice.” Her small fingers hesitated over the strings. Her chest rose and fell in a deep breath, steadying herself. 

Thorin had the strange impression of standing on the edge of a cliff as she plucked a few notes and hummed, as if reminding herself of the song. She frowned, flexed her fingers, and as she began to play, his world faded to the sound of her voice. 

_“My young love said to me, ‘My mother won’t mind_  
_And my father won’t slight you for your lack of kind,’_  
_And she stepped away from me, and there she did say,  
_ _‘It will not be long, love, till our wedding day.’ ”_

_She stepped away from me, and she moved through the fair,_  
_And fondly I watched her move here and move there,_  
_And she turned her way homeward with one star awake,  
_ _As the swan in the evening moves over the lake._

It was a simple song, slow and halting as her fingers strummed past the awkwardness of time, but her voice dipped low and haunting as she sang, humming the parts between verses where a flute might accompany her. 

With every line, Thorin felt something shift inside him, foundations expanding and breaking away to make room for the sound of her voice. It wasn’t beautiful, but rough and soft, not anything like the sharp birdsong when she spoke. Beauty was too easy a word for what he felt. It pierced him, different from her eyes that made him feel burning and entirely unsure of himself. 

Her song was like a shaft of light in the darkness, faint, fleeting, but the truest thing he’d ever heard. He forgot his quest. He forgot his name, his duty and his pride, and he let her song wash over him—a gentle reshaping of who he’d thought he was, and who he wanted to be.

_The people were saying, ‘No two were e’er wed,_  
_But one has a sorrow that never was said,’_  
_And she smiled as she passed me, with her goods and her gear,  
_ _And that was the last that I saw her, my dear._

_Last night she came to me, my true love came in,_  
_And she came in so easy, her feet made no dent,_  
_And she laid her hands on me and there she did say,_  
_‘It will not be long, love, till our wedding day.’  
_ _‘No, it won’t be long, my love.’ ”_

In the silence after she finished, a calm settled over him, ancient and new and _right_.

She coughed, a faint blush growing high on her cheeks. “Well. There you are, then.” 

As if aided by the clarity in his chest, Thorin saw her walls rise back up slowly, over the vulnerable bob in her throat, the quick blinking of her eyes.

“Miss Bella Baggins,” Bofur started, eyes bright as a smile sprouted on his face, “you’ve been holding out on us.”

Rolling her eyes, she plucked her pipe from his mouth and exchanged it for his lute. “Don’t ask me again. I don’t know that many songs.”

“That was lovely, Bella,” Fíli said, pulling her into a one-armed hug. 

“And sad,” Kíli said with a frown. “Thought hobbit songs would be more lively.”

“It’s not sad,” she murmured, shrugging. “My father said it reminded him of my mother. He used to play a lot when I was younger.” She mouthed her pipe, and there was something restless and hedged about the motion. “They were married on Midyear, sixty years ago to the day, wouldn’t you believe. Hobbits do like their celebrations, and the Summer Solstice is second to none in merriment, excepting maybe the Thain’s birthday.” Her voice grew soft and faraway as she added, “They’ll be leaping over the bonfires about now, choosing their partners and sneaking off draped in garlands and rings of twisted ivy and hawthorn, leaving sweets for the little spirits of the gentle fields.” She cleared her throat, and gave a weak laugh. “Apologies, lads. I’ve grown morose after all this lounging about. I should have sung you a drinking jig.”

Thorin felt the moment of clarity fading as he recognized the pain in her eyes. That cliff’s edge rushed toward him in a dizzying swell. Bella looked up and met his gaze. 

And the ground fell out from under him. 

“I think it’s time we put out this fire,” he said, getting to his feet as his chest constricted painfully. His voice was strangled, but he ignored it, concentrating solely on keeping his eyes off Bella. “We’ll be leaving early tomorrow morning. I suggest you all enjoy the comfort of your elvish beds while you can.”

He felt like his chest was about to burst, heat trailing along every nerve in his body. Her eyes _hurt_ where he felt them brush his skin. Whatever fool calm he’d thought he’d found before was ripping apart like a paper house in a brisk wind. 

What in Mahal’s name was happening to him? Had there been some sorcery in her words? 

He silenced the few murmurs of dissent from Fíli and Kíli with a look. 

Bella’s gaze followed him, its intensity as bright as a beam of burning sunlight, but he kept his face expressionless and bid them all goodnight when the fire was calmed and the debris of their erstwhile camp cleared off the fine veranda. 

Once back in the safety of his own room, he stood in its center, fighting the urge to pace. He shucked off his clothes and sat at the edge of his too-soft bed, braced his hands against his knees and fought for calm. But there was no calm to be won, not even as her voice singing that damned song drifted through his mind. 

He pressed a hand to his chest, feeling for a wound that was not present, for some sign he wasn’t finally succumbing to the madness that plagued the line of his forefathers. 

Dragon-sickness was a curse of greed and gold, not quiet songs and firelight. It did not belong to a hobbit, no matter how much she might remind him of a dragon when she shouted and her eyes burned. This fierce desire made no _sense_. 

Unless.

A part of him knew, even then, what it was—what it might be. 

_Love is a wildfire_ , he’d said to her once, nearly a month ago, the words drawn out as if pulled from his lips by a thread. A thread wound around a small, hesitant finger plucking notes on a too-big lute.

Mahal damn him, after nearly two centuries of waiting, after burying his hollow disappointment deep inside him where any desire for that singular bond few dwarrows were lucky enough to find was nothing more than another man’s dream, he _knew_. 

 

~  ✧ ~

 

Rivendell was beautiful, Bella decided at last, staring out over its hidden homes and fountains, the small, twilit gardens and secret arbors, even if it felt too still, too calm. It was a quiet place, but very unlike her Shire. The quiet here spoke of mystery and time, rather than the simple pleasures of a life lived among growing things. Rivendell was like the elves, timeless and beautiful, and just a bit unnerving. Though she could appreciate its charms, she didn’t quite belong. 

_Of course not_ , she told herself with a frown. What a silly thing to wonder at. 

“You could stay, you know.”

Bella arched an eyebrow at Elrond, standing beside her at the edge of the courtyard which led to the road into the Misty Mountains. Behind them, the Company prepared to leave, her dwarves in higher spirits than she’d seen them since her encounter with the trolls. Whether it was because they were finally leaving the “cursed witch-elves,” as Dwalin liked to mutter, or that she’d finally managed to persuade Elrond to provide them with meat and cheese for their travels rather than small grains and sharp-tasting greenery, she didn’t know, but it warmed her heart. 

“I could, but I won’t,” she said with a smile, turning away from the grand view of the tree-covered vale. “Though I would love to come back one day, if you’ll have me.”

“I will accept nothing less,” he mused, casting a sharp eye over the dwarves. “Perhaps with less baggage next time.”

“And you wonder why they don’t like you,” she muttered. After spending a few afternoons with Elrond, she’d grown fond of him, finding a constant underpinning of sarcasm and wit which never ran cruel beneath the distant, learned air. He was very like Gandalf, but more subtle with his disdain, and less bombastic. Refreshingly so.

“Tell Arwen goodbye for me,” she added, a twinge of guilt coloring her excitement to leave. “I’m sorry I had to go before she returned.”

Arwen had left to scout the surrounding vale for orcs before the Company left, ensuring their road would be clear for a few days at least. It was a kindness Bella hadn’t expected, and she treasured it. 

“I will, my friend.” He leaned down to press a chaste kiss to her forehead. “May your journeys bring you swiftly back to me, and my home, which shall ever be yours, should you need it.”

Bella snorted, gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “You’re a horrible flirt.”

His smile was slight, but it dripped with self-satisfaction as he glided away. 

She turned and joined the dwarves, casting her eyes over the courtyard for Gandalf. The old crow was probably making them wait on purpose.

“You actually like that leaf-eared ponce?” Fíli frowned with distaste over her head as she walked up to him. 

“It might have slipped your keen perception, Fíli, but _I_ have leaf-ears as well.”

“It hasn’t, actually. I’ve decided to overlook that flaw because you are a dear friend.”

“I think he’s fine,” Kíli said with a shrug. “He’s quite funny, for an elf.”

Fíli gave him a flat look. “Don’t speak to me ever again.”

Bella chuckled as Thorin said behind her, “At least one of my nephews seems to have their head on straight.”

“You’re a bad influence, Thorin Oakenshield,” she said, smiling at him.

He met her eyes for a brief moment before walking past them all. “Speaking of bad influences, has anyone seen our wizard?”

Bella fought a frown. Odd. He almost seemed to be avoiding her gaze. After last night, when he’d jumped up from the fire like a hornet had snuck into his trousers, she’d wondered… But perhaps he was just eager to leave. “I haven’t. Though I assume he’ll show up in a dramatic fashion here soon with much bellowing.”

“I should hope I will never be so predictable as that, Belladonna Baggins,” Gandalf’s voice echoed over the courtyard as he emerged from a side colonnade. 

Before she could open her mouth to retort, her eye was drawn by a flash of glimmering white, and she stilled at the sight of an elf standing in the shadows behind him. 

She was tall and lean, like all elves, but where most bent and swayed like thin, supple trees, she gave the impression of a spear of marble—a living statue. Her skin shone a brilliant pale gold, and her eyes gleamed eerily blue under a tumble of gentle white hair. 

If Bella had thought Arwen looked like moonlight personified, this elf was a star—remote, cold, and brilliant beyond comprehension. 

A shiver ran down her spine as she thought she heard a whisper in the back of her mind. The elf did not move except for a slight tilt of her head, but the piercing scrutiny in her eyes made Bella feel like a frightened child.

“I apologize for keeping you all,” Gandalf said, his rough voice calling Bella back to herself. “But I will remain here for the time being.”

“What?” she said, pulling her gaze from the elf at last. “You’re not coming?”

“Regretfully, your brush with the orcs has placed other concerns in my path.”

She fought the urge to rub her shoulder, the still-tender mark of the Morgul-arrow pulsing. 

“How long will you be?” Thorin asked, face hard and voice gruff. 

“I have no idea.” Gandalf looked over his shoulder at the elf with an almost nervous smile. “No more than a few days, I hope. There are matters to discuss beyond your quest, Thorin Oakenshield. Matters which, as yet, do not concern you.”

“Then I’ll expect you to be careful with your tongue, Greybeard,” Thorin muttered.

Gandalf’s expression soured, but Bella cut him off before he could posture back at Thorin. “If you want to be cryptic, old man, just be cryptic. You don’t have to insult him.”

Thorin gave her a surprised look, something flashing in his eyes, before nodding his thanks.

“Whose side are you on, my dear?” Gandalf scowled. “I should think I warrant—”

“Perhaps I am on no one’s side,” Bella said, “as no one seems competent enough to be on _my_ side.” 

A small twinkle of laughter made her tense, and she looked over just in time to see the starlit elf turn with a faint smile and disappear into the shadow of the colonnade. 

“Who was that, Gandalf?” Fíli asked, frowning deeply.

“ _That_ was the Lady Galadriel,” Gandalf murmured. “She is the reason for my remaining in Rivendell.”

Kíli’s brow lifted. “Gandalf, you dog. Good for you.”

Bella snorted so loudly she scared poor Ori, causing him to drop an armful of pots and pans with a loud, raucous clatter. 

Gandalf bumbled off, muttering something about the impertinence of dwarves and Tooks. 

Kíli lingered at her side, staring off into the colonnade where the elf had been standing. “All right, that one was a bit scary.”

Bella hummed in agreement, taking a deep breath and shaking her nerves away. 

“You think Thorin’s acting odd this morning?”

She hesitated in the act of lifting her pack. She did, in fact, think Thorin was acting odd, though she couldn’t understand why. It’d make sense if it was only directed at her— _that_ she’d grown used to over the past few months. But he seemed distant with everyone, and distracted. 

“I would claim no insight into your uncle’s moods,” she said, “varied and violent as they may be.”

Kíli frowned. “Wouldn’t you?”

She met his gaze sharply. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He held up his hands. “Nothing. Maker’s mercy, don’t bite my head off.” He gave her a curious smile as he helped lift her pack and rejoined the others. “You’re touchy this morning too. Maybe it’s something in the air.”

“Maybe,” she murmured, her eyes drifting to the back of Thorin’s head. It was a few moments before she felt another pair of eyes on her. She turned to find Fíli hovering close by, as he had the past few days. Like an anxious storm cloud. “Sweet, subtle Fíli, has anyone ever told you that staring is considered rude by some?”

His eyes narrowed. “Are you really all right?”

“Bother and—”

“Yes, I’m confusticated, whatever that means,” he said, stepping closer and frowning. “You look well, better than you should with only a few days rest. But you’re not fooling me.”

“I’m not trying to fool you,” she whispered, shoving him gently in the stomach. “And who are you to know about war wounds? How many wars have you been in?”

“None.” He sighed, concern etched so deep in his face she thought it might freeze like that one day. “I’m just—I care about you, is all. You’ve done well in training with Dwalin, but training and going back to a soft bed is a sight different from being out in the wilds again so soon. I hope you don’t feel like you need to prove anything to anyone here. To me, or to…others.” His eyes grew pointed, and she was reminded uncomfortably of another dwarf with blue eyes which had a tendency to pierce through her attempts at nonchalance.

“I don’t,” she murmured, trying not to indulge the irrational anger rising up her throat. “Look, Fíli, I appreciate the concern. It’s sweet, but you have to stop babying me. I’m older than you by hobbit standards, and I’ve managed not to kill myself so far.” She nudged him with her elbow, smiling. “Give me a bit of credit, won’t you?”

His expression softened, and he nodded. “Of course.”

She pulled him into a hug, grinning as he lifted his arms after an awkward moment. 

“I’m very glad you didn’t die, Bella,” he murmured into her hair, squeezing. “I don’t know what I would have done without you to make my heart seize up in fright every few hours. I might have lived a quiet, calm life.”

She sighed, a rush of affection for the overbearing worrywart nearly overwhelming her as she heard the tightness in his voice. “You’re too uptight, you know. You could do with someone to shock you every now and again.”

“With you and Kíli, I’ll go grey before I’m a century old.”

Bella snorted, and squirmed free from his embrace. She patted his cheek fondly, wondering if this is what it might feel like to have a brother, just for a moment. “Kíli’s easy. He just needs someone to throw a ball at him every now and again and tell him he’s a very good boy.”

“I can hear you, you know,” Kíli said as he jogged back to them, lunging for her and pulling her into a tight hug. “And I agree, I am a _very_ good boy.”

She squealed as he picked her up, spinning her in the air. “Put me down or I’ll snip your bowstrings! Don’t you _dare_ , you little _shit_ ,” she cried as he started pinching her.

Fíli ignored her pleading look for help and sighed dramatically. “What a peaceful life I might have had.”

Bella shot him a murderous glare as she caught Kíli in the kidney, sending him down with a choked groan. 

“Like herding cats,” Fíli mused, only to duck behind Dwalin as Bella picked up one of Ori’s fallen pans and charged toward him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Khuzdul  
>  _akrâgkharm_ \- male that is no direct relation by blood, yet is regarded by one as a brother, holding him in high honor and offering an unshakable sense of loyalty, friendship and profound platonic love
> 
> 1\. The song Bella sings is the one linked at the beginning of the chapter. I've had this one as an inspiration since nearly the beginning of writing this fic. Cara Dillon's voice is exactly how I would imagine Bella's sounding, and this version of the old song is _perfect_ for the melancholy Bella's dealing with in this chapter over her mother. Obviously, imagine it with a lute instead of a piano, but it's pretty much exactly what I hear in my head when I think of this scene.
> 
> 2\. Bear with me on Thorin's "epiphany" in this chapter. If you follow me on tumblr, you'll probably have seen me get salty about soulmates/insta-love romances. The idea of a dwarven soulmate has kind of become fanon (or it's very prevalent in the Bagginshield fics I've read) and I wanted to dissect it a bit. If this is not your thing, I completely understand (and if it is your thing, absolutely no judgement! I just like my romances to be a bit more complex), but trust that I will not be making it easy for these two, and have every intention of interrogating this idea as we move further along. It won't, for instance, correct some of the, ah, bad things, that happen later on. 
> 
> 3\. I'm going to be updating pretty frequently for the next week or so. I've been dealing with health problems that make it hard to write new content, so my plan of finishing this whole fic before I continued posting isn't going to work (or it's going to take a lot longer than I'm willing to wait). Luckily, I have 25 more chapters of this baby already written. I just need to edit them, which takes significantly less energy than writing fresh stuff. That will mean that I might need to take another break at some point, but I wanted to get something done while I wait for said problems to have a solution.
> 
> <3


	16. Strength in Your Eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Angel At My Door" by NEEDTOBREATHE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A86JbRiJLT8&index=16&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-)

Thorin managed to hold himself taut for nearly a week, keeping his eyes to himself and his hands busy with something or other—Óin had asked if he’d bumped his head when he offered to help pick healing herbs on their way out of the elven vale. He’d been trying to distract himself with pleasant thoughts, such how many pieces he might be able to cut an orc into with one swing, or the benefits of different metals for different blades, when he finally snapped. 

“When did you know?” he asked Balin one cloudy morning as they paused at a fork in the path, the air chill with dew. The trees had begun to thin and the peaks over their heads had risen sharply in the past few days. The weather was getting colder, though it was still high summer, the wind sharper. It might have been pleasant—he had always preferred rock and sky to the rolling green fields of gentler country—if his mind had not been mostly occupied with other thoughts. One thought, really. 

“Know what?” Balin did not look at him, still frowning down the path ahead, trying to determine which way to go around a cleft in the rock. 

“That Hertha was your fated-love?”

Balin went perfectly still. 

Thorin would not have asked if he could help it—the topic wasn’t something one spoke about lightly. The loss of one’s _âzyungel_ was a blow not many survived, and Balin had been without his wife and partner for almost fifty years now. 

Slowly, Balin turned to him with a deep furrow in his brow. “Why?”

In the time it took Thorin to scramble for a reason that did not involve the truth, his attention was drawn by a sharp cry. 

“Bella, what are you _doing?”_   Dori shouted.

Thorin followed his gaze before he could stop himself.

Settled on the tip of a disturbingly thin branch of a spruce tree sprouting out of the side of a sheer rock face, she peered through the mist and cloud. “Looking for the path,” she shouted down, as if she were describing the weather to a dull child. To Thorin’s horror, she let go of the branch entirely and straightened up, almost standing. She looked steady and comfortable, perched so high in the air, which only made his stomach attempt to leap up out his navel. “The left one’s blocked. We’ll have to go a bit farther south to cross.”

Kíli’s laugh did nothing to release the stranglehold on his chest as Bella turned, and with a casualty that did not match the near forty feet between her and sharp, deadly rocks, she made her way back down to the group of dwarrows clustered around the base of her tree, actually hopping and swinging herself onto the ground.

Thorin swallowed the bellow lodged in his throat and felt Balin’s eyes on him. “It’s no matter. Forget I asked.” He made to walk forward, feeling the fool even for bringing the matter up, but Balin grabbed his arm before he could take a step.

Thorin looked down at his cousin and saw sharp, piercing interest in his eyes. “This is a purely academic curiosity, yes?” 

He hesitated, but the difficulty of keeping his thoughts to himself the past week broke his resolve. “Of course.”

Balin sighed deeply, seeming to add a few years to his life as he shook his head. “You remember the ball of Durin’s Rest the year you got Dwalin stuck up a diamond shaft?”

Thorin grinned. He’d been young, only fifteen, and bored, as he usually was in those days before the dragon came. Dwalin, the same age and just as bored, had been bragging about his skills at mining as he had in his youth. Thorin had challenged him to prove himself worthy, knowing his friend could not resist. Dwalin might now be well assured of his own prowess, but the young warrior had been overeager, a fact which Thorin had used to his extreme amusement when the occasion warranted it. Two days later, Dwalin had not been able to unstick himself from a small hole he’d tried to burrow through like some mole. Thorin’s uncle had screamed at Dwalin so loudly it was said the fury of Fundin would echo through the lower mining quarter until Mahal himself came to claim Erebor in the final days of the world.

Balin’s voice grew kinder, though no less pointed. “I met my Hertha in the opening ceremonies when she deigned to dance with me, and knew before the night was done that I belonged to her and her alone.”

Disquiet rose in Thorin. “You knew so soon?”

Balin nodded. His sharp interest faded to a deep longing. “She told me later that she knew the moment she laid eyes on me.”

“She was always too kind for a bitter crow like you,” Thorin murmured.

“Aye,” he smiled, eyes distant, “that she was.”

A moment of silence passed between them, before Thorin pressed, “And when you knew, you felt…happy?”

Balin slanted a look at him. “Happy? What are you, a dwarfling?”

“I only meant—”

“No, I wasn’t _happy_. For one hundred and eighty years after, yes, but not at first. I was terrified.” Balin shifted, a deep frown on his face. “ _Âzyungel_ is not some blossoming giddiness to sing sweet songs over. Happy is too simple a word for such a bond. You know this. Why are you asking, Thorin?”

He did know it, but stories from his childhood were little comfort when face with the urgent and painful present. 

Fated-love was written into the foundations of Dwarrow-kind, along with the bond of blood-kin and the debt owed to their creator, Mahal. Variations on the origin of _âzyungel_ were numerous, some claiming Mahal wept for his wife in the world above and carved her name into his chest so he would bear the pain of her absence more keenly, the echo of that pain resounding in some lucky dwarrows throughout the ages. Others took a more practical approach, theorizing that Mahal created them all with intention and purpose, for what was a tool ill-fitted to its job? One’s fated-love was their other half, the reflection of them which would bear the strongest offspring. 

This couldn’t be the whole truth, of course, because men had found _âzyungel_ with other men, as had women with other women. No one really knew until someone came back from Mahal’s hall with His final answer. At its core, the fated-love resonated with what all dwarrows knew to be true—they loved fiercely, and jealously, and when a dwarf found his partner, fated or not, it was always painful and eternal. For as dwarrows were forged by Mahal before creation itself, so too must love be forged in fire and steel and pain. 

Thorin had always taken a relaxed approach to romance, having never experienced it himself.He believed in love leaving scars—he had seen enough of his parents, his sister, his cousin, to know that it raked claws against the soul of each dwarf it touched, though none ever seemed to regret it. 

Mahal sever his beard, he’d as much as _told_ Bella in their third conversation that love was a passionate, joyous burden, but the idea that he’d found it, finally, after so long and at the worst possible time, with a _hobbit_ , of all creatures to walk this earth…

“Like you said,” Thorin grunted. “Academic curiosity.”

Balin’s eye twitched. “Right.”

“But,” he said, stopping the dwarf in his tracks as he turned away, “what did it _feel_ like—physically?”

“For a man who has never displayed any more emotional nuance than the hewn shield from which he draws his name, you are awfully _curious_ about this.” Balin muttered uncomfortably under his breath for a moment, before holding Thorin with the force of his gaze. “It felt like I’d been dunked in solid ice and shoved through with pikes. It felt like my insides had turned to outsides, and my outsides had turned to dust. I felt both like I’d been the stupidest dwarf in all of history for taking so long to find her, and that I had been blessed with the cleverness and luck of Mahal himself for finding her at all.”

In the silence that followed, Thorin had the odd impression that he’d stepped out of himself and was hovering over the mountains—floating, lost, in the air without roots or rock to hold him. 

“Does that answer your question?” Balin asked, eyes hard and searching. 

“If you two have decided not to camp before lunch,” Dwalin called from down the path, “the rest of us would like to move on.”

Thorin watched Balin storm down the path, his eyes moving beyond to the Company stretched out in a curving line. Fíli was looking back at him with a frown, and at his side, Bella watched him with an arched brow.

He met her lovely black eyes for a moment, feeling again that shifting inside him, the hollowing out and burning—the certainty pierced through his core with sunlight. 

It did answer his question. 

That was his problem.

 

~  ✧ ~

 

“I hate rain,” Bella shouted over howling winds, huddling into her cloak and cursing the feeble tailoring of elves. Elrond had been kind enough to give her something to wear over her mother’s coat—a beautiful thing, with golden thread and green leaves stitched onto its fine woolen exterior—which held warmth about as well as an ice box. “I hate wind. I hate rocks.” She scowled. “I hate these mountains.”

In front of her, Bofur picked up the tune and continued in a carrying voice over the storm, “ _Oooooh_ , that’s what Bella Baggins hates!”

“I hate dwarves,” she added, unable to muster the energy to kick him. Though, kicking anyone at this height would be courting murder. 

High up in the Misty Mountains, where the rain dropped daggers of ice-water and the sky screamed like a woman in labor, one tumble off the cliff would mean a quick and painful death, if one were lucky. 

Being pelted with ice and wind made her truly appreciate the gentle warmth of her old life. Had she thought herself so much better than all that only a few weeks ago? She imagined herself sitting in her armchair by her fire, nestled gently into blankets, reading a thick book which smelled of pipe-weed and the fresh-flaky pastry baking in her oven. Best of all, she imagined herself alone without any dwarves for miles and miles. 

“You need someone to carry you, lass?” Dwalin shouted behind her, somehow managing to make his voice drip with amusement over the wind. “Those sensitive hobbit feet of yours getting a bit chilly, I’ll bet.”

“I’m going to skin you and wear you as a coat, Dwalin Fundinson,” she shouted. 

His laugh was swallowed by the storm. She could barely see more than one dwarf in front of her. The rain was so thick it obscured her vision. 

“We need to find shelter,” Thorin called, his voice sounding at home amidst the roaring thunder. “Somewhere to wait out the storm.”

A chorus of voices began to echo their assent, when a fork of lighting slammed into the mountain beside them. Stone cracked, the ground swayed, and Bella lurched to the side. She hung over the edge of the cliff for one terrifying breath.

Dwalin caught her arm and pulled her back, bracing her against his chest. “I got you, lass.”

Heart attempting to flee through her mouth, she nodded, patted his arm where it was tucked under her chin. Armchair. Blankets. Fire. _Courage, Bright Eyes_ , she told herself firmly, imagining Gandalf chiding her for letting a little thing like a storm frighten her.

“This is no storm,” Balin’s voice whipped through the wind. The rest of his words were lost to another earth-shattering clap of thunder. 

Bella blinked rain from her eyes, pushed hair back from her face. All around her the mountains seemed to shake and move, making it hard to tell sky from rock. 

Dwalin moved her in front of him, and she stumbled forward, following so close on Bofur’s ankles she nearly collided with him a few times. The mountain shifted again, this time with an inhuman shriek. A boulder the size of ten ponies flew through the air over her head. She watched it, transfixed, as it hit the mountain. The ground split with the impact, and before she understood that the mountain _was_ , in fact, moving, half the company vanished, taking Fíli, Thorin, and the others out of sight. 

Her cry was swallowed by the wind and the roaring as the mountain battled itself, joining Kíli’s and Dwalin’s shouts of alarm. The ground heaved, and she leapt a few feet in the air. Flailing for anything, she caught a jagged spur of rock which she hoped belonged to the part of the mountain not currently falling off into the void. She clung to the rock with all of her strength, braced between two armored dwarves, though she’d never be able to tell who in all the chaos. Her nails ripped and somewhere in the back of her mind, she felt her shoulder burning with a steady, dark pain. 

And then she was pitching forward, the mountain-face flying toward her at an impossible speed. She closed her eyes, and the last thought she had was of her father’s lute sitting in a cupboard in Bag End, and how she would never get around to stringing it again, when a hand tugged her to the left and down. The sound of grating, shrieking stone nearly deafened her as her face pressed into wet leather.

She had not been squished to a bloody pulp by the mountain, but there was a dwarf braced on top of her, shielding her with his entire body. 

Kíli let out a weak laugh as he rolled off to her side. “Well, that was exciting.”

She put out a feeling hand, finding Kíli’s face and patting it in reassurance. “Oh, you beautiful boy, I could kiss you.”

“ _Now_ she wants me,” he choked, sitting upright. “Bet those ponies are looking rather fine now, eh—”

“ _Kíli_ ,” Fíli’s voice cried out before a thunder clap sent all their ears ringing. 

“Fine,” he answered, rising with Bella. He set her on her feet, brushed her shoulders, as if she’d just had a short tumble. He gripped her hand, as if to reassure himself she was still there. “We’re all fine.”

“Fine is a relative term,” she mumbled, still shaking. Bella’s eyes moved over the scene as her heart traveled back down her throat. Dwalin seemed to be holding Ori upright, the young dwarf’s legs trembling so badly he could barely stand. 

Bofur held none of his usual levity as he stared wide-eyed into the sky. “The legends are true. Storm giants. Bless my fucking beard.”

Boots pounded around the corner as the rest of the company caught up with them. Fíli’s face only tightened when he saw his brother, moving around the cliff to pull him into a fierce hug. 

Bella smiled and tugged her hand from Kíli’s, straightening off the mountain-face and testing her legs. Firm, surprisingly, though her shoulder burned something fierce. She edged around the young princes, squinting through the rain. A deep shadow hollowed out twenty or so feet up the path. “I think there’s a cave up ahead,” she called, taking small careful steps. 

Looking over her shoulder to make sure they heard, she locked eyes with Thorin, who had followed Fíli and was watching her with relief so plain it wiped all thought from her mind. He looked young, with his eyes open wide and a smile curling his lips. 

Until her foot shifted, and the stone crumbled beneath her. 

One moment she was staring into Thorin’s eyes, the next she was falling, not tipping, but _falling_ , into open air. Her hands shot out, skin ripping against stone as she scrambled for purchase. The edge of the cliff rose higher and higher above her as she slid down the rock face. Her fingers caught on a ledge and she screamed as her shoulder nearly ripped from its socket. Black swarmed over her vision, and the cries of panic following her down the side of the mountain dimmed. 

The pads of her fingers slipped on rain-slicked stone, and for one infinite second, she hung in midair. 

An iron vise clamped over her wrist, pulling her up with such strength her shoulder erupted once more in pain. She screamed as wet shadows danced across her eyes and the pulsing cold-fire of her wound sent the taste of iron down her throat.

Her pulse thundered in her ears as she slammed to a stop, pressed against the rock and caged by a moving, breathing piece of the mountain. 

She jerked away from the grip holding her, choking on a cry as it held. 

“Bella. _Bella!”_ Thorin’s voice pulled her out of the black burning of her shoulder.

“Let go,” she managed, pressing back against his chest. “Thorin, my shoulder—”

His grip relaxed at once. He leaned back, though his other hand came to her uninjured shoulder. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

She shook her head, unable to voice words past the scream in her throat. Her body shook with adrenaline and the aftermath of nearly dying twice in the span of one minute. Fear and relief pulled her chest apart as they battled for dominance.

Eyes wrenched shut, focused on her breathing, she didn’t see Thorin lean in or press his forehead against hers. For a second, she thought she was hallucinating. She relaxed into the grip on her waist where he held her firmly against the mountain—almost hard enough to hurt, but not quite. His solidity enveloped her, his stillness a harbor in the tempest. 

His warm breath brushed her face, and he murmured, “I thought I lost you.”

That filtered some level of reality into her mind. She moved back a fraction, pressing her head into the rock to better see him. 

Endless blue eyes held her fast, a darker color of storm than the one raging around them. Her chest fluttered, though she couldn’t tell if it was her heart trying to convince itself she was still alive, or if it was because of him. She struggled to understand the bright panic in his eyes, the urgent desperation that nearly reached out and grabbed her with its potency.

“Have a bit more faith,” she breathed, trying for a smile. “Poor burglar I’d be if I didn’t vanish from time to time.”

His eyes closed and his hand moved up to cup her face. “So long as you come back.”

The conflicting pain and shock of it all made her words come out in a whisper. “Is that a threat?”

“Yes,” he murmured, voice breaking ever so slightly.

His thumb brushed along her chin, and her lips parted of their own accord, her thoughts tangling up like a ball of string batted around in the wind. She couldn’t quite be sure any of it was happening at all. 

He released her, hovering, watching closely to ensure she didn’t fall. The storm enveloped her again and she started shaking so violently her teeth clicked together. 

He shrugged out of his coat and draped it over her before she could protest more than, “Thorin—”

He shook his head. “ _Don’t_ go ahead of the group. Never again. I nearly—” His voice cracked, and he looked down. “I will not always be there to catch you, should you lose your footing again.”

Bella pulled his coat around her and mumbled, “It wasn’t me that lost my footing. It was the damn mountain.” She blinked rain from her eyes, trying to see any trace of the man who had only moments ago cupped her face in reverence and laid his forehead upon hers. 

“Don’t argue with me, burglar,” he said roughly, chest rising in a deep breath. “Not right now.”

Anger flashed bright like the lightning over her head, but she was saved the trouble of retorting by Fíli’s panicked cry. “Bella? Uncle, is she—” Another boom of thunder cut off his words.

For the first time in what felt like days, but was really only seconds, she looked up, and found Balin staring at them.

She saw his look of interest, almost disapproval, and grew frustrated. An irrational reaction, to be sure, but her mind was split between ten different emotions right then, and all of them seemed as silly as the next.

The place where Thorin had brushed her chin burned despite the chill of the rain.

“Is she all right?” Kíli shouted over the storm, but it was his brother who pushed past Balin and made straight for Bella.

“Miss Baggins is fine.” Balin watched her closely, his brow furrowed deep. “It looks like she’s found us a cave.”

Cries of relief and excitement drifted toward them as Bella wondered what on earth he could have to be upset about. 

“Come on,” Fíli murmured, his expression relieved as he folded her into his arms, “let’s get out of this bleeding rain.”

They followed after Thorin, finding the cave tucked into the mountain, larger than it had seemed from outside. There was room enough for all of them to fit comfortably, walk about, even lie down, if they had a mind. The dwarves shucked off their packs, huddling close with quieter voices than usual, as if the storm had stolen their enthusiasm. Bombur distributed some salted venison and the company settled down for the night. Óin fussed over her hands, smeared some stinging ointment on them before wrapping them in what little dry gauze he had left.

Bella moved with a strange detachment, saying little, joining Fíli and Kíli where they took up a little spot in the back of the cave. Perhaps she was getting used to the experience of nearly dying, or she was simply too tired to care, but her mind was clear.

Her eyes roved again and again to the mouth of the cave, watching Thorin speak with Dwalin, Balin, and Glóin about continuing on after the storm, comparing notes about paths they might take, how long to wait if the storm didn’t let up.

She felt the echo of Thorin’s embrace after he’d saved her. She felt it on her waist and against her cheek, heard his voice, broken and soft against her skin. 

Since leaving Rivendell, he’d barely spoken to her, and had only ever been polite and distant. She had been starting to think he regretted allowing her to stay, that perhaps it had been guilt fueling his decision, and that guilt had transformed into frustrated tolerance. She’d almost longed for their tense fighting in the weeks leading up to her encounter with the trolls. At least then, she’d known where she stood. Anger was so much better than awkwardness. He had been trying in Rivendell, or it had seemed like he had, only to ignore her the moment they were back on the road.

And then he’d saved her life. He probably would have saved her life anyway—even if he hated her, he’d never let her die. But…how quickly had he needed to run forward to catch her? He’d been behind Fíli and Kíli, nowhere near her when the rock crumbled from under her feet. He’d held her, made sure she was all right. He should have been furious. He _should_ have thoroughly chewed her out for being careless or foolish or reckless. 

For an hour, she lay awake, listening to the snoring of dwarves, conscious of the lone figure sitting in the mouth of the cave. Thorin had insisted on taking first watch, despite Dwalin’s rather mulish attempts to get him to sleep. 

She propped herself up on her elbow and chanced a look at him. He stared out into the still-falling rain, fiddling with something in his hands. She thumbed the edge of his coat, a thought forming in the back of her mind, dragging a tangle of heat and nerves in its wake. 

His reaction made no sense. Unless. 

Doing her best not to wake Fíli or Kíli, who had conveniently placed themselves on either side of her, as if to minimize the bad luck she might bring on herself just by breathing, she picked her way through the sleeping dwarves. 

She shrugged off Thorin’s coat, regretting the cold at once as it wrapped clinging hands around her. Some part of her told her to back to sleep, to leave the thing growing roots in her heart alone. But in all her fifty years of life, she had never been one to back away from an instinct like this. She wasn’t going to start now. 

When she was only a few feet away, he stiffened, turned his head halfway toward her. “If you are intending to steal away into the night,” he murmured, his voice resonating inside her chest, “you are doing it poorly.”

“It’s adorable that you think you’d hear me if I was trying to sneak out.” 

“With each pronouncement of your supposed skill, my expectations grow, burglar,” he said, meeting her gaze. 

She smiled. “Good.” Silence stretched between them, broken by Dwalin’s sonorous snore. 

Unfolding his coat from her arms, she held it out. 

He didn’t look down. “I gave it to you for a reason.”

“Because I was cold, presumably. And now that I’m not, I’m giving it back.”

He didn’t look convinced. “The shaking and chattering teeth is from comfort, I presume?”

Her jaw clenched, but she set her annoyance aside. “Just take it. Honestly, I’m starting to wonder if you just _enjoy_ being a royal pain in my ass.”

His mouth twitched, hiding a smile, but he took the coat and draped it on his knee. A small patch of cloth sat on the other—the little handkerchief she’d picked up after their first meeting in the woods of the Green Hill Country.

“You never told me what that is.” She nodded at the cloth, a tight awareness rising in her chest, making her acutely aware of her body and how close it was to his.

He blinked a few times, and she took his hesitation to run her eyes over his face, to trace the thickness of his neck where he’d pulled his wet hair back into a knot. 

“It symbolizes the house of Durin.” He picked it up, laid it flat on his palm. “Seven stars for the seven lives of Durin the Deathless. Crowned atop a mountain in the seventh kingdom of Erebor.”

“Very symmetric.”

He chuckled. “You’ll see our love for symmetry and geometry when we reach the Lonely Mountain. Dwarrows value order, straight lines, discipline.”

“You don’t say,” she murmured, looking down at the patch. Reaching forward before she could stop herself, she pressed her finger to the diamond at the base of the mountain. The fabric pushed into his palm. “And this one?”

“The Arkenstone,” he breathed, so quiet she barely heard him. 

She drew a small circle around the diamond, smoothing the velvet. “Which is?”

“The king’s jewel.” His voice dropped lower, vibrating through her hand. “The Heart of the Mountain. My grandfather claimed it as a blessing of Mahal, thinking it bestowed upon the House of Durin divine right to rule.”

Something in his voice grew tight, pained. A deep furrow creased his brow, eyes shadowed where they stared down at the patch. 

“I’ve never heard you mention it before,” she murmured.

“It was lost when Smaug took the mountain, no doubt hidden within the wyrm’s hoard. Without it, my claim to Erebor is nothing but a dream.”

Bella’s mind sharped as the reason for her presence on this quest finally slid into place. “And I’m to steal it for you.”

His eyes flicked up to gauge her reaction.

“Were you planning on telling me,” she asked, smiling slightly as she saw his wariness, “or was I to be shoved into the mountain without warning? ‘Good luck, Bella, don’t die—by the way, be a dear and find the only thing that will legitimize my claim to the throne.’ ”

His smile was slow and stirred dangerous heat in her belly. “A few minutes’ warning, at least.”

She hummed a laugh, let her fingers wander over the fine stitching and velvet. “You dwarves keep your secrets close.”

“We have reason.”

“I know,” she murmured, sympathy filtering through the tightness in her chest. He had lost so much, this exiled king. She could see it in his face when he didn’t think anyone was looking, when he allowed that warrior’s mask to fall and show the cracks in the foundations of his eyes. Even if he sometimes made her want to ring his neck, she knew that part of him was always in pain, for a kingdom that was taken, and a people who’d been wandering for too long without a home. She didn’t know _when_ it had happened, but she knew there was loss in these dwarves of hers, felt in none more keenly than their king. 

Perhaps the understanding had grown slowly with her affection for their gruff nature and too-full hearts, reflected in Fíli’s honesty or Kíli’s laugh, but she had found her own hopes wrapped up in theirs. She wanted them to find their home, wanted it desperately every time she watched Bofur give her a wink and a helpful word, every time Dwalin snorted at something she said. When Thorin looked east, eyes going distant with longing, she felt it in her bones. They’d grown on her, these sad, hopeful men. 

She wanted to tell him she understood the tension in his shoulders, and the furrow in his brow, and though she knew there was _something_ in the air between them, she was afraid. This wasn’t a story, not like the ones in her books back in Bag End, where pieces of a puzzle fit together perfectly, and one only had to wait until the answer revealed itself. This was something else entirely, and the tension working its way up her throat did not feel exciting or romantic. It felt terrifying. But it _felt_ , and that, perhaps, was why she couldn’t turn away and slip back inside her bedroll. 

For sixteen years her life had been nothing but hardened grief and the endless monotony of a disappointing, lonely life, calcified into something which she’d convinced herself resembled comfort. Empty comfort. Easy comfort. It was only in the past few weeks that she’d started to understand that while she might, sometimes, want it, in that simple way one craved their favorite sweet roll, or a familiar armchair and a warm hearth, she didn’t _need_ it.

She didn’t quite know what she needed, but she did know what she felt, and standing before Thorin in the mouth of a rain-soaked cave, it wasn’t the emptiness of her gentle, safe Shire. 

“Thorin,” she whispered, flattening her palm against his, letting that feeling spread until it nearly swallowed her whole, “thank you for saving me.” 

He said nothing, but his fingers spasmed under hers. 

“I hope you’re not expecting any grand pledges of service, though,” she murmured, nerves fluttering erratically in her chest. “I’m grateful, but I’d prove a poor vassal. I might find you infuriating from time to time, but I wouldn’t subject you to that kind of trauma.”

His hand moved slowly, the pads of his fingers brushing the underside of her wrist, careful not to disturb her bandages. Her breath caught. 

“I didn’t do it for your gratitude,” he murmured, running his fingers up and under the edge of her sleeve, scraping lightly at her skin with his thumbnail. His pull was sleight, barely a thought, but she stepped forward. Her skirts brushed his knees, and she felt a tremor run through his fingers, pressed to her pulse. “Though it is appreciated.”

She could walk away, knowing that whatever Thorin’s problem with her was, it was not one of indifference. There was nothing _indifferent_ about the way he was looking at her now, like a man seeing daylight for the first time in a decade. They were in a dank, dripping cave, with twelve snoring dwarves around them, but the look in his eyes made her feel as if the world had faded and left them alone with plenty of time just to stare at each other. The lingering pain in her shoulder dimmed, forgotten. Her heart was a fluttering bird inside her chest. She felt giddy, young, reckless—she _felt_.

“Why, then?” The patch of cloth slipped between her fingers, the velvet soft and smooth compared to the rough pad of his thumb. 

The answer hung in his face, in the bold, hungry way his eyes held hers. But she wanted to hear him say it. She needed to hear him voice out loud that the irrational _thing_ hanging between them wasn’t just something she’d dreamed up one night in a dirty inn. 

Because though she would never admit it, she was too scared to be the first.

“Bella,” he murmured, and a corresponding lurch went through her chest. _Damn_ him for having such a lovely, deep voice. It made her senses run wild, every shift of his fingers heightened, every feature of his face cast in light.

Light that was brightening every moment they stared into each other’s eyes. 

A small part of her still floating in hazy longing thrilled as his grip tightened.

“Bella,” he repeated, voice sharper, sloughing off its soft edges, “your sword.”

“Hmm?”

He pulled her forward in a jerk, her mind snapping in confusion. Any half-hearted indignation at the gesture died when he tugged her blade from her sheath, and she saw that her sword was glowing a strong, lovely blue. 

Cold water dunked over her head and her mouth popped open. “What on earth—”

“Everyone up,” he shouted. “To arms! _Now!”_

Dwalin was the first to wake, leaping to his feet with a growl and pulling his axes out in the moment it took for him to stand up straight. 

“Thorin, what is going on?” she asked, grabbing his arm as he turned around the cave and pulled on his coat. 

He met her gaze, fierce calm settling over him like a shroud. “Goblins.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing like a little post-near-death-experience romance to spice up your cliffhangers, am I right? <3
> 
> So like I said last chapter, I know _âzyungel_ is pretty common in fanon, but I will be, as always making my own little tweaks. I've seen a few different iterations of it, so I'm not going to make any claims as to how accurate my version is. 
> 
> Also! Most of you have probably noticed by now, but I'm adding songs to all my updates. I have a [Youtube playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-) with songs corresponding to the chapters I have already posted, as well as a [Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/eveninglottie/playlist/2udfaFFBQE7SIXBxy8StQF) of all the songs I have in store for the fic. Some of them won't make it obviously, but they're what I'm using as inspiration. So spoilers, kind of? I'm always up for recs though, so if you know of anything I might like, feel free to send me a message over on [tumblr (same username: eveninglottie)](https://eveninglottie.tumblr.com/ask)!


	17. Rise Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Glitter & Gold" by Barns Courtney](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GySIToHCPac&index=17&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-)

The dwarves jumped to their feet, most of them stumbling over one another as axes got tangled in bedrolls and pots and pans rolled under feet. 

“Bella,” Fíli cried, no doubt seeing the empty space where she was supposed to be laying. “Bella, where are you?”

“I’m—” Her voice broke off in a shriek when, for the second time that day, the ground fell out from under her.

She hit Thorin as she lurched to the side, his arm coming around her before he also lost his balance. Tumbling with the rest of the dwarves in a confusing tangle of limbs and weapons, the darkness swarmed in around them as they toppled down a steep tunnel. Her mind was too wrapped up in her _glowing sword_ to worry about someone’s errant axe slicing open her belly, though she had a few close calls with Dwalin’s pet blades. At some point the arm around her vanished, and she reached out blindly.

After what felt like hours, they slid out into a wide cavern lit up with torches, and then down into a huge wooden bowl. Something broke her fall, something hard and lumpy. Dwalin grunted and cursed as she tried to right herself and accidentally found the one soft part of him on nearly five feet of stone-hardened dwarf. 

Light blazed against her eyes as a horde of pale, slimy creatures carrying torches rushed toward them. In the sudden chaos of the moment, she didn’t even have time to be afraid before one of them got hold of her arm and tugged. 

Her shoulder burned and she screamed, joining the outrage of the dwarves as the goblins divested them of weapons. In the blur of limbs, she caught Dwalin trying to swing his axes, though he didn’t have room to get much momentum without cutting off Nori’s nose or her head. 

A flash of blue light caught her eye on the other side of the hoard—Thorin wielding his own glowing sword. Really, he should have told her the swords glowed. She might not have given them up so easily. 

The goblin holding her arm gurgled something in her ear, and she twisted with a snarl. Her sword came up—she didn’t know when she’d unsheathed it—illuminating its milk-white eyes. Its yellow pupils dilated, and it choked something that might have been a cry of terror, before her blade jammed through its neck. 

Part of her registered how easy it was, how smoothly the metal slipped through its flesh, but any other thoughts were banished as something knocked into her from behind. She toppled forward and hit the ground on her knees as legs swarmed around her. Dwalin’s thick, steel-toed boots kicked pale, misshapen bodies, bellowing and trying to grab for her hand, but he couldn’t reach her. 

Down in the claustrophobic press of goblins and dwarves, the flickering light of torches dragging fire through inky darkness, she felt like she’d been plunged underwater. Her chest constricted, her mind rioted, and she lost her nerve. 

Something in the marrow of her bones cowered back, scrambling for free space, for somewhere to breathe. She was not made for darkness and death and caves, where the sky was only a memory and a wish. Smashed between dirtied legs and steel boots, the heavy press of unfamiliar bodies and the rank smell of blood and sweat and grime, her atavistic instincts roared to life. 

There was some kind of wooden scaffolding at the edge of the platform, and she crawled under it, dragging her sword with her. In her panic, however, she didn’t see the gap in the wooden planks until it was too late. Her body slipped through, her scream swallowed as she fell through open air. Visions of falling forever into a black hole raced past her mind as terror pounded in her blood, but she hit another level of crumbling wood after only a few seconds and tumbled to the side. And then another soft crash and splintering of wood as she hit something else. 

Down and down and down she went, unable to catch herself or stop, until eventually she smacked face-first onto wet, muddy ground. Dull pain rang through her head and her vision blurred. She struggled to her feet, staggering in a suddenly empty, echoing cavern. 

She pressed herself back against the wall, trying to stifle the quick, breaking breaths tearing from her throat. The only illumination came from the glow of her sword, still, somehow, clutched in her bloody hands, Óin’s bandages hanging off her fingers in tatters. Though the ceiling was high over her head, she felt the mountain press down on her, smothering her air and making her feel small, so small. 

She did not know how long she stood against that wall, counting her breaths, trying to calm down, but after some time her heart slowed, and she realized that she was entirely alone. 

Fumbling for her cloak to deaden the light of her sword, she found it had been ripped from her neck, lost somewhere amidst the goblins, or on the fall down. She still wore her mother’s coat, to her immense relief, but she didn’t have her pack, or her walking stick. She also had Thorin’s handkerchief, balled up and held so tightly in her fist, she hadn’t even realized it was there. She slipped it into her pocket, trying not to laugh at the odds. _This, I hold onto. Priorities, foolish girl._

She had her sword, though, and the little knives still strapped above her knee under her skirts. _Dwalin will be happy I held on to it, at least_. Shifting it behind her back for the moment, she tried not to focus on the steady pounding of her cheek where she felt a bruise forming, or the agony in her shoulder. Without the light of her sword, she was plunged into darkness. Her jaw clenched against a whimper as she stared wide-eyed into the black.

The Company was gone and she was alone at the bottom of a goblin tunnel, without light, without food, without any knowledge of how to get out or where _out_ even was. 

She was alone, for the first time in nearly three months. 

“You’re not dead,” she whispered to herself, wincing as the sound bounced off dripping walls. “And you can’t see.” Cringing back, with her skirts at the ready to smother the light, she edged her sword out from behind her. Blue light cast ghostly shadows over rocks and fallen planks. Bile rose up her throat as she saw the rotting corpse of something which might have once been a goblin only a few feet to her left. 

No one seemed to see her, though. No one was running toward her snarling, at any rate. There was nothing for it. Without the light of her magic sword, she was as good as blind down here in the roots of the mountains. 

Bella looked up at the path she’d carved through the wooden scaffolding, not seeing any sign of firelight, and felt her heart fall into her stomach. 

“Well,” she muttered, “this is one way to test all that boasting I’ve been doing.”

 

~  ✧ ~

 

The goblins herded the Company across creaking bridges held together with little more than spit and twine, all the while shrieking in their twisted tongue. 

Thorin honed his rage like a blade. The last time he’d been amongst the foul, cave-dwelling wretches, his grandfather had been cut down by the Pale Orc at Azanulbizar. The stench of goblins was the same as he remembered, their blistered, patchy skin smelling of sulfur and turned fish. The memories of that battle surfaced like thrashing eels in his mind. His hand itched for a blade which had been taken, carried before the group with the rest of their weapons. Even an elvish blade was better than nothing.

He tried to turn and check on the state of his Company, but every time he so much as hesitated, a chittering shriek accompanied the prodding of sharp, crude spears in his back. 

He had a feeling he knew where they were being led. If this sprawling cavern, covered in goblins like roaches who had infested the walls, flickering with many torches and fires, was what he thought it was, they would soon find themselves in more trouble than they could manage. 

Sure enough, they came to the center of the hall, where a hulking figure sat atop a throne shoddily constructed out of wood and bone, smeared with dried blood and barbed spikes. It was a craven’s throne, a rat’s throne, and the goblin sneering at him as they approached suited it well. 

The spears in his back shoved him to his knees with the rest of the Company. He took the brief distraction of his captors to scan an eye over his companions. None seemed too hurt, though Óin had lost his ear trumpet and Dwalin had blood smeared down the side of his face. Fíli and Kíli looked fine, and Bella… 

In his short scan, he didn’t see Bella. He didn’t see her between Fíli and Kíli, where he’d expected they might have dragged her to keep her safe. She wasn’t scowling behind Dwalin, or huddled close to Bofur. There was no sign of a small face and golden-brown curls. 

He met Dwalin’s gaze, saw fresh panic in his eyes, and knew Bella was not with them.

“Thorin Oakenshield,” a wicked voice rang out over the caves, quieting the chittering masses, “what an honor.” The Great Goblin’s laugh forced Thorin’s attention forward, his mind split between thinking of a way to get them out, and the gripping, horrible dread that Bella was _not with them_.

Had she been taken somewhere else? He thought not—if the rest of his Company had been presented to the Great Goblin, his minions would not separate her. Nor did he think she’d been killed outright. The Great Goblin enjoyed his games, and finding a hobbit so far from the Shire might prove an excellent distraction for someone with a twisted mind, as much as it made Thorin’s anger rise to think it. 

He settled on the only other option left to him—she had gotten away, somehow. She had gotten away, and perhaps found a way out of the caves. He hoped she had finally decided to abandon them all and save herself, although experience told him otherwise. 

He would not think of her knocked out cold and left on a ledge somewhere, or fallen off a bridge into one of the chasms below. He _could_ not.

“Such luck, to find you in my halls, Son of Thráin.” The Great Goblin lounged back upon his throne, creaking and groaning with his enormous girth. “It has been a long time.”

Thorin poured all of his panic into his rage and spat on the ground. _“Îyib ni rathkhgairu-mêzu, abrâfu shaikmashâz.”_

An appreciative murmur swept through the dwarves.

The Great Goblin chuckled, the wet sound drilling holes into Thorin’s mind. “What a bunch of filth. Are you still angry at me for killing your brother? It was so long ago. Let the past rest.” He rolled out of his throne, trudging toward Thorin like a diseased cow. “Besides, you have more immediate revenge to concern yourself with. An old friend dogs your shadow. Whispers come to me from the rats and the flies. _Orcs_ hunt you, little king.”

Thorin did his best to hold the Great Goblin’s gaze, to ignore the thudding urgency inside him. They needed to get out of this nest of maggots. Now.

“What would a great pustule like you know of the world?” he snarled, knowing he might be able to buy them some time if he prodded the monster’s ego. “You listen to the drippings of your own refuse and think them portents.” His company jeered and added their assent. “How long has it been since you braved the sun, _Gabilukkhaf?”_

The Great Goblin’s face twitched, a hint of insanity shining in his wet, bulging eyes. “Big words for a king with no crown. A king under no mountain but _mine._ ” He shook himself, the sight repulsive as his limbs and fat jerked independent of each other. “Soon to be a king with no head. But I will not take it from you. Not yet. Not unless I am granted the favor. Oh, yes,” he said with a wicked laugh, “I hope he lets me. But if not, at least I will watch as your ignorance comes back to rip out your throat.”

Thorin’s panic over his company, over Bella, dulled in favor of something else—something darker, which surfaced from the still lake of his mind like a beast out of legend. 

“Now he understands,” the Great Goblin crooned. “Who do you think sent orcs after you, little king? None but the Pale Orc hates you so deliciously.”

“The Defiler is dead.” Thorin’s voice rang out against the chittering laughs of the goblins around him. 

“Oh, is he? Why, then, did he send me a missive not a month ago, telling me of a company of dwarves who might seek to creep across my mountains? Didn’t his boy get one of you already? Bolg shot a black arrow through the heart of a tiny thing—but I see no tiny thing in your company. Because it died, didn’t it? How would I know this, _Oakenshield,_ if his scouts had not told him, and he told me?”

Thorin had to fight to keep his face expressionless. 

Azog was dead. He died of wounds from the blow dealt by Thorin himself. He was _dead._

“Let them waste away in the cages for now,” the Great Goblin said with a huge, distorted grin. “Keep the little king here, though. I fancy myself a _chat._ ”

Thorin turned back to his Company as they began to protest, silencing them with a look. Fíli’s eyes were wide with panic, while Dwalin looked ready to rip each goblin holding him limb from limb. 

The Great Goblin clapped his hands, and music began which made even the elvish plucking of Rivendell sound sweet in comparison. 

_Azog is dead_ , he told himself again, forcing himself to believe it. But the idea slammed into his gut over and over like a battering ram. The Great Goblin could not have known about the Morgul-arrow, and who had taken it. There was no way, unless he had been told. And if the orcs tailing him were powerful enough to ask favors of the ruler of Goblin town…

Wherever Bella was, he hoped she wasn’t the woman he thought her to be—he hoped she was cowardly and selfish, and was currently on her way out of these cursed caves. If one of them could escape to see the sun again, he hoped it would be her.

 

~  ✧ ~

 

Bella pulled herself up onto yet another wooden platform, wondering how on earth anyone was supposed to navigate the damn things without stairs or ladders. She rolled onto her back, taking a moment to catch her breath and cursing the goblins for such shoddily constructed paths. 

“Oh dear,” she mumbled, wiping sweat and grime from her forehead, “I’m starting to sound like a dwarf.”

She’d climbed and crawled and hoisted herself back up into the belly of the mountain. Light flickered in the recesses of some caves, but every time she crept forward, she found it was only the illumination of an echo, an imprint snaking through the maze of caverns and holes under the goblin city. It had taken her nearly an hour to climb back up from the dank little hole she’d fallen into, and still she saw no sign of goblins or dwarves apart from the bone remains and mounds of dirty cloth. “Probably just throw it all down into the dark,” she muttered with a scowl. “Vile creatures.”

Pushing herself to her feet, she moved forward, following again the faint flickering light she saw around bends and dips in the tunnels. After about fifteen minutes, she heard a faint splash of sound, a muttering. Her heart leapt into her throat and she practically shoved her sword up her skirts to hide its light. Wet sounds smacked off the cavern walls over the sound of her blood pounding, and then a voice started to sing.

“The rock and pool, is nice and cool, so juicy _sweeet!”_  

More smacking, and an ominous, muted _crack_ followed by a slurp. She edged around one of the platforms, squinting into the near-darkness. More light flickered over a shallow stretch of water, catching the hint of flames and making them dance over the ceiling many feet above. 

A figure crouched on an outcropping ten feet above the little lake. Thin, bowed, more like an insect than a person, it had the same pale skin as a goblin, though—she didn’t know why, but she thought it was something else. It looked more like a man than a goblin, but smaller. _Like a hobbit._

Beyond the figure ran a tunnel, and as she waited in the darkness, the sound of horrible music filtered through along with more light. Her heart swelled and she knew, somehow, that she had found her way back up. The little path twisted around the creature, but there was nowhere for her to hide or sneak past, not without alerting it. Hobbits might be fleet of foot, but no one could be that silent. 

It might sound somewhat pitiful, but she had no intention of trusting its sickly sweet voice.

“So nice when they have a party, preciouss,” the figure said, crooning down at what she now saw was a half-eaten goblin. It coughed, sounding as if it were trying to retch something up from its stomach, and when it spoke again, its voice shifted lower, into a snake’s menacing hiss. “Nobody notices a few missing goblins here and there, no, no. Happy to take them down for us, yes, preciouss, aren’t we?”

Bella fought a wave of bile and clapped a hand over her mouth, moving her sword behind her back, readying a swing in case it turned and saw her. 

A loud clatter of instruments and a swell of goblin voices came through the tunnel, followed by a strangely cultured voice shouting in a vast, echoing cavern. “Shall we string the king up and make him dance?” 

_Thorin._

The creature cowered back, turning lamp-like eyes up to the source of the music. “Naaasty,” it hissed, hopping a bit as it returned to its meal.

Bella’s hand clenched around the hilt of her sword as she swallowed the last of her fear. This…creature was standing in the way of her and Thorin. She hadn’t crawled up the gullet of the mountain just to be stopped by a pale monster barring her path. She didn’t have time to be afraid. 

_Hold on, Thorin,_ she thought, taking a low, steadying breath. _I’m coming._

Slowly, she crept forward, keeping close to the rock and ducking whenever the creature shifted. It kept humming to itself, talking out loud in those two strangely disparate voices. Her skin crawled as she got closer and smelled the fishy odor of its person. 

She was only a few feet away, ready to sink her blade into its back, same as she’d killed the goblin up above—when it giggled.

The sound stayed her blade and stirred something inside her. Bella watched the creature puff itself up, clearly pleased as it examined a bloody glob of muscle or organ in its hands. 

It reminded her of children at the Spring Festival, when they would go digging in freshly tilled dirt for prettily painted eggs, coming up smeared in mud and worms, but holding their little treasures up for all of Hobbiton to see. 

Unease curdled in her stomach, and she remained frozen behind the creature as it slurped on its fingers, humming a tune which sounded vaguely familiar—like a lullaby she’d long forgotten, but which had left an indelible mark on her soul. Whatever this thing was, it hadn’t hurt her. It hadn’t threatened her. It was just living its own, foul life, and she was about to kill it simply for the bad luck of being here at the same time as her.

How had she become so willing to kill in such a short amount of time?

Her jaw clenched, and she moved forward, shifting her grip slightly to get ahold of the end of the hilt. Dwalin had shown her how to daze an enemy, hitting it in a softer spot behind the ear, rather than knocking it out cold. She just hoped she could put it to practice.

_Please don’t die_ , she thought with a deep breath, and jumped. 

The creature cried out in alarm, half-turned to her, before she smacked it below its ear and sent it sprawling. A gurgling cry broke from its lips as it and the half-eaten goblin toppled over the little cliff and into the water. 

Bella rushed forward and relaxed as she saw its sunken chest rising and falling in the shallows at the edge of the lake. Well, whatever happened to it now, she wasn’t responsible for its fate. That had to be enough, though she still felt wrong, cruel. 

“Nothing for it,” she murmured under her breath, and swallowed back her guilt.

Something smooth rolled under her foot, very different than the jagged rocks or muck.

A glint of gold caught her eye—a ring in the dirt, catching the blue light of her sword and seeming to sparkle and shine. For a moment, she stared, wondering if she was starting to go mad, for it looked exactly like the ring tucked into her drawers back home—the wedding ring her mother had worn Bella’s whole life.

She bent to pick it up and marveled at the size. It was small, far too small for anyone but a hobbit. In fact, it looked perfectly sized to fit her ring finger. How on earth did such a pretty thing find its way into such a horrible place? All thought of the creature vanished from her mind as she ran the tip of her bloodied finger around its edge. It was beautiful. Lovely, even.

Not knowing where the urge came from, exactly, she slipped it on and examined it. No scratches or scuffs, it fit perfectly. So perfectly, in fact, that it seemed to have been made for her alone. She shook her head of a queer, prickling feeling in the back of her mind—suddenly feeling better, more solid. The pain in her shoulder and head dimmed, and stillness seemed to focus her thoughts. _Right_ , she thought. _Time to find my dwarves._

“Stranger and stranger,” she mused, taking a deep breath as she turned toward the tunnel. With one last look over the cliff at the creature to make sure it was still breathing, she crept up into the flickering light. 

The growing noise and smell confirmed her suspicions as, after nearly ten minutes of creeping and hiding at every shift of rock, she came out of the tunnel into the bright light of hundreds of torches. In her momentary daze, she didn’t see the goblins walking past her until it was too late. 

She lurched back, brandishing her sword—but they didn’t turn, didn’t leap onto her with snarling fury. They simply shuffled by, nearly knocking into her before she pressed herself back into the wall. 

Bella watched them go, her mind blank. _What on earth…_ She turned to the walkway and saw more goblins hanging off it, looking forward at the center of the noise and commotion. 

There was no way they couldn’t see her, plastered to the side of the cave like a frightened mouse, frozen in plain sight. Had she died in the mountain below and become a ghost? Had that creature killed her, and she was having one last delusion before it ripped open her belly? 

It was then, through her shock and confusion, that she felt a small pulse on her finger, echoing the beat of her heart. 

She looked down at the ring, and the pulse shuddered slightly. The gold ring dazzled in the flickering torchlight, and she thought she saw an impression of letters written into the metal itself—curling, graceful script, looking almost elvish. Just like the engraving on her sword. Within her awoke a mad thought, a thought so impossible she should not encourage it. 

Another group of goblins scuttled toward her, and she stepped directly into their line of sight. _Mad. You’re going mad, Bright Eyes_ , a voice warned her, sounding like every hobbit back in Hobbiton. 

Well, if she was mad, this would be the moment to act on it. She glared at the goblins, waving her arms back and forth. One of them looked up, and stared directly through her, but its yellow eyes didn’t fill with fury or bloodlust. It didn’t seem to see her at all. 

Dodging through them, she came out the other side of the group, and clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh. 

This ring… Could it be a _magic_ ring? It fluttered over her finger, as if answering her question, and she shook her head in disbelief. 

_A magic ring. Mother would be so jealous._ It was straight from her stories—heroes finding priceless, mysterious treasures down in the depths of forgotten caves. She already had a glowing sword, how much more impossible would it be to find a ring of invisibility?

Rolling her shoulders back, she plunged forward, dipping through the goblin masses along the edge of the cave, making her way toward the center platform. She ran into a few of them, but they all seemed to expect the close press of bodies, and chalked it up to their friends jostling them for space. 

Spurred on by the thrill of her new discovery, Bella crossed onto one of the platforms just above the center, and saw Thorin. 

He knelt, surrounded by ten goblins with sharp, jagged spears aimed at him, before a rotund, monstrous thing. It jeered and clapped along to the shrieking music coming down from the rafters. 

She felt a rush of righteous anger as one of the spears nicked Thorin’s chin. How he could still look majestic on his knees and covered in grime, she didn’t know, but he glared at the monster on its rickety throne, looking every bit as regal as he would have if standing straight.

Scanning the cave, she sighed in relief at seeing the rest of the dwarves in cages on the next platform. 

“All right, Bright Eyes,” she murmured, hopping over a few creaking platforms, making her way toward the cages with the beginnings of a plan forming in her mind, “time to earn your keep.”

The cages holding the dwarves sat against an outcropping of rock, held together with crude, rusted chains and rotting wood. They looked like they might break apart if one looked at them cross, but she knew why the dwarves hadn’t yet attempted to get free. Any hostile action might send those spears straight into Thorin’s gut. 

She slipped alongside one of the cages and whispered, “Bofur!”

He stiffened, turning at once. 

“Don’t turn around,” she said frantically, wondering how she might explain to him she’d found a magic ring since she’d last seen him. Better to explain later. “I’m hiding.”

He froze, eyes holding at a point in the distance, wide and utterly shocked. “Bella, is that you?”

“Who else?” she grumbled, glancing down the line of dwarves. “Are there keys for these cages?”

He blinked, gathering together his wits, and whispered, “I don’t know.”

“Who’re you talking to?” Dori asked with a frown. 

“Bella,” he whispered, “I think.”

“What?” Dori practically squawked. 

Bella shot a nervous glance at the goblins, some of whom looked behind and chattered their rotting teeth in warning. 

“ _Be quiet_ ,” she muttered. _Honestly._ “Bofur, did anyone else see the keys?”

The question got passed down the line. When it reached the end, where Fíli stood with Dwalin, both straightened and looked toward Bofur in alarm. 

“It sounds like— _Fíli,_ ” Bofur snapped when the young prince tried to shift down the line. “She’s _hiding._ You’ll draw attention to her.”

Fíli looked about to argue, when Kíli dragged him back, hard eyes flicking in her direction.

Bofur continued, leaning toward the bottom of the cage, as if she were hiding under the slats, “It sounds like the keys got taken by the nasty-looking one with the red helmet, up to the left.” Bella followed his gaze, dimly registering the absurdity of standing directly in front of the cages, in full sight of the goblins, with no one the wiser. 

She fought the urge to tweak Bofur’s nose, and whispered, “Be right back.”

His eyes widened and he started to say, “Bella, you can’t—,” but she was already off, picking her way through the goblins and making sure not to make any more noise than she could help. With her sword sheathed, she managed to pull herself up onto the platform, looking over at Thorin every few seconds to ensure he was all right. 

The _thing_ sitting in the throne was baiting him, but Thorin’s expression was stormily calm, like the pregnant pause between lightning and thunder. So he _could_ control his temper when it mattered. She felt a rush of pride, having to drag her gaze away as concern and affection bubbled up into her chest and sent confusing thoughts flitting through her mind. _Infuriating dwarf._

“Not the time,” she mumbled. 

The goblin with the red helmet was jostling with a few others, leaning over the edge of the rail to get a better look at the center platform. She considered sneaking forward, but when she saw the keys looped over a dirtied string slung round its waist like a belt, she hesitated. 

Cutting the string might alert the goblin, but if she had a distraction…

Grinning, she retrieved her father’s knife from under her skirts and slid through the goblins until she was standing directly next to the one with the red helmet. Waiting for a collective laugh from the group, she bumped her hip into the goblin next to her target and stamped her heel down hard on the key-holder’s foot.

The group devolved into chaos. Quickly, she severed the string and caught the keys before they could fall, nearly losing her footing as they erupted into yelping and snarling at one another. 

“ _Quiet,_ ” the bulbous goblin said as they interrupted something he was saying, “or I will use the lot of you as cushions for my throne.”

The goblins went still, and she chanced a look down at the platform. Thorin had looked over at the Company, his eyes scanning the cages where they were being held and sweeping around the room. His gaze passed over her, and she saw the intense concern shining in his eyes.

Bella hurried back to the dwarves, going this time to Fíli. Kíli was still holding him back as he stared down at the group of goblins, saying something low into his brother’s ear. She balanced over the side of the platform, creeping until she was right behind him, and whispered, “Don’t you dare turn around.”

He stiffened, and she could almost hear his jaw clench. “Bella—”

She ignored him and slipped the keys into his pocket. Snorting as he twitched, she murmured, “Jumpy little dwarf.”

“What in the hell is going on, lass?” Dwalin growled, not turning, but seeming to shift his weight slightly toward the sound of her voice. 

“You know where your weapons are?” she asked, stepping aside his question.

Kíli, bless him, seemed thoroughly entertained by the whole situation, and nodded to the right. “They didn’t even string them up, the stupid roaches.”

“Right,” she breathed, frowning down at the center platform, “I’ll help Thorin. Be ready when I give the signal.”

“What are you going to _do?”_ Fíli whispered, voice strained. 

“I’ll think of something.” She reached forward and tugged Fíli’s ear. “Don’t worry.”

She swung back onto the platform as Fíli’s self-control finally broke, and picked her way down to Thorin. She went as far as she could in the shadows, waiting at the edge, only ten feet from where Thorin knelt. 

Nerves clustered up her throat and she clenched her hand around her father’s knife. _Chin up, Bright Eyes_ , she told herself, imagining Gandalf’s voice ringing in her mind. _You’re here for a reason. No time for fear._

Slowly, she walked out onto the platform, wary of testing her invisibility in such a foolhardy way. When no one looked at her, not even Thorin, she grew bold, jabbing her knife into one of the goblin’s legs as she passed by on her way to the throne. It shrieked and fell back, swinging its spear for some sign of her, but she was already feet away, unable to stop a small chuckle. 

It was then she saw Thorin’s sword lying at the huge goblin’s feet, and thanked the idiot’s audacity to keep in plain sight. She looked back, as if to reassure Thorin, only to find his eyes staring unfixed at the ground, head cocked, as if he were listening hard.

_Clever little king_ , she thought with a smile. Scanning the throne, she saw it creaking under the goblin’s girth, connections rusted or bent so far out of shape it was a wonder it hadn’t broken already. She peered over the edge of the platform into the great chasm behind the throne. Jagged spikes sat at the bottom. Looking back at the connections, she had the spark of an idea.

She might just be able to knock out two birds with one stone, if she played this right. 

 

~  ✧ ~

 

Thorin stared at the ground as the Great Goblin continued to pontificate about his imminent demise, feeling acutely as if he were being watched. He was, of course—most of the hundreds of goblins in this cave were watching him with an eager, anticipatory hunger. But this was a different kind of attention, one that made the hairs on the back of his neck rise and his skin hum with an electric current, like the moment before lightning struck. 

The odd occurrences of the last few minutes did not help—the commotion within his Company, the little pockets of disturbances in the goblins on the platforms surrounding him, the strange distraction as a small, barely audible snort sounded under one of his guards’ snarling.

He had imagined it, surely. There was no way Bella could be on the platform with him. She would have been spotted immediately. 

But as his eyes drifted up to the Great Goblin and the throne, he caught a flash of movement, one so small and so slight, he might not have seen it at all if he hadn’t been looking for anything out of place. A piece of metal slowly unhooked itself from the base of the ramshackle throne and flew gently into the chasm beyond. More bits and pieces fell off as he was looking, never enough to draw attention, as if it were spontaneously and meticulously disassembling itself. 

For nearly five minutes, he watched the throne creak and whine, no more perceptible than it had been before. The Great Goblin himself paid no heed to the continuous shifting and groaning under him, growing more and more interested in the fell music coming from his doting subjects.

A smile grew on Thorin’s face. It had to be Bella. Who else was bold enough to pick apart the goblin’s throne while he was still sitting on it? Was she using fine, clear string, some kind of long tool to pry pieces off from a distance as she perched on the back of the throne?

“You know, your brother had the same leering grin on his face when I cut off his head,” the Great Goblin said, leaning forward as if to drive the point home. “I wonder why… Is it the madness whispered of your line? Cursed to insanity—the sickness inside you taking root in the last moments of life?”

A larger piece broke off the throne, what looked to be a wooden beam. Impossible excitement growing inside him, Thorin said, “Perhaps you can ask him yourself.” 

He’d never thought to see Frerin’s death avenged. After his father’s failure to gain any ground in Moria, and the decision to abandon yet another home of their forefathers, he had resigned to live with his grief and guilt, knowing his brother would never have thought worse of him. Knowing there was nothing he could do. It had been hopeless to want anything more.

Staring at the Great Goblin now, he felt hope kindle again in his chest, a subtle shift where he kept all his great disappointments and failures—as if he’d found the key to their lock at last.

The creature cocked his head, and slumped back in his seat with a hearty laugh. Too hearty, for as he began to say, “The bravery of fools will never—,” the throne gave a sharp whine and clunked down as the goblin’s great weight threw off its balance. He frowned, looked around him, and saw the back of his throne spitting wood and metal like a billows spouting steam. 

“Well,” he said dispassionately, “that’s not good.”

Thorin ducked and grabbed one of the spears pointed at his chest, spinning it and jamming three of the goblins onto its end before they were any the wiser. Another four knocked to the ground as he swept them off their feet, and he turned to the Great Goblin. 

_“Baibgil ni binaznân, khama Frerin!”_ he shouted, grabbing another spear and throwing it straight into the foul creature’s face. The throne lurched back with the momentum of the impact, taking the Great Goblin and a large chunk of the platform with it.

For a moment the cavern was silent except for the gurgling shriek of the goblin as he fell. The sick, squelching impact reverberated around the walls, a sweeter sound than the discordant clanging of their music. 

He blinked—and saw _Bella_ , standing right in front of the place where the Great Goblin’s throne had sat moments before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Khuzdul  
>  _Îyib ni rathkhgairu-mêzu, abrâfu shaikmashâz._ \- Crawl into your hole, descendant of rats.  
>  _Gabilukkhaf_ \- Great Defecator  
>  _“Baibgil ni binaznân, khama Frerin!_ \- Rot in the darkness, for Frerin!
> 
> I hope you'll forgive me for taking a bit of liberty with this part. While I think Bella would be more than capable of riddling with Gollum, I don't think, at this point in her character arc, that she would be happy playing games while her dwarves were in danger. I realize it is _the_ most iconic scene in the book, but, well. I am nothing if not ambivalent to canon when it suits me. And I think this makes more sense in the long run, with the changes I'll be making down the line.
> 
> Thank you guys for all the lovely comments. You make my day, and I am so thrilled other people are enjoying this ride <3


	18. The Only Place I Call Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Heartlines" by Florence + The Machine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldw3OT8OI_g&index=18&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-)

Thorin’s relief was so strong at seeing Bella, he nearly forgot that he was surrounded by goblins on all sides. He shoved it out of his mind and rolled forward, dodging the three spears still aimed at him by his confused, but quickly recovering guards.

As he came to a stop next to her, he saw that Bella was struggling to lift his sword, scowling as she dragged it across the platform toward him. “How is anyone supposed to lift this thing?” she muttered as she looked up. “Oh,” she smiled, “hello.”

“Burglar,” he said, welcoming her quick scowl of annoyance. It took all his self-restraint not to grab her up into an embrace and never let her go again. Instead he grinned, heart pumping in giddy triumph as he unsheathed the sword and turned to goblins advancing on him. 

The blue glow of Orcrist swept over the crowd like a wave. All of them fell back at once, shrieking and shielding their eyes. A ripple went around the room as many of the goblins threw themselves to the ground or clutched their heads in fear. 

Thorin didn’t hesitate, but sliced clean through the goblins in front of him, reaching back without looking to pull Bella to his side. A part of him registered how easily she came, and how he should probably savor the moment as it was likely never to happen again, but he didn’t stop. Whatever elvish sorcery his blade unleashed as it drove them mad, he would not trust it to hold indefinitely. 

His Company had already collected their weapons, having broke free from their cages with less trouble than he’d expected them to have. His grin widened. _My burglar has been busy._

“What did you do to them all?” she asked as they raced across the platform.

Thorin nearly stopped in his tracks at the absurdity of her question. “What did _I_ do?”

Whatever Bella said in retort was swallowed by a wail building amongst the goblins. Without their leader, they would soon revert to their animal instincts. The Company would need to move quickly before the swarm could overtake them. 

“Did you have any ideas for getting us out, burglar?” he asked, still gripping her hand, unwilling to let go in fear that she would disappear again.

“Oh, yes, let me solve _all_ your problems, never mind that I just had to go crawling around in the dark by myself just to save you all before you got yourselves decapitated,” she snapped, glowering up at him as the reached the end of the platform. “How you managed to survive a day before you met me, I will never—” She yelped as he hoisted her into his arms and leapt up to the platform with the rest of his company. “Blast and confound you, Thorin Oakshieled,” she screamed into his chest, her voice muffled.

He set her down immediately, not wanting to draw the ire of her talons, though he couldn’t help his smile. Her blazing black eyes turned on him, but the Company swarmed her before she could lay any curses upon his head. 

“Save your exclamations over our burglar’s unexpected arrival for later,” he said quickly, turning as the goblins began to rush toward them. 

He stepped in front of Bella as the wave hit them, putting her firmly between his and Dwalin’s backs. Cutting down the creatures with impunity, he detached from himself, letting his body move in its battle rhythm, to think of a plan. If they could cut a path, they might be able to find a tunnel up to the surface. Goblin Town had many, if he remembered his father’s tales right, though most were as ordered as anything built by the minds of insects, which was to say, not at all.

“We’re in a death bowl, here,” Dwalin called over the squealing and shrieking around them. “Only a matter of time before they overwhelm us.”

“We need to get higher,” Thorin shouted, letting Nori and Kíli defend him as he looked up over the wooden platforms. Dread pulsed in the pit of his stomach as he saw the sheer mass of goblins bearing down on them.

The memories of Azanulbizar and the endless, mindless hordes falling on them again and again surfaced as he cut through goblins by the dozens. Dwalin, Balin, Óin, and Glóin might be ready for this kind of fight, but the rest of his dwarrows had not seen battle on this scale before. 

Something brushed across his cheek, an errant stream of cold wind bringing the promise of something spectacular, and he turned on a whim. 

Beyond the shifting horde stood a tall figure with a pointed hat, holding a staff in one outstretched hand, and a grand sword in the other. The build of the wizard’s magic rushed through him, the only warning, before Gandalf shouted, _“A little more light!”_

“Brace yourselves,” Thorin shouted and ducked, turning to see Bella’s wide, black eyes hard in fear, but still brilliantly whole and present behind him. 

A pulse of white light broke through the cavern, blowing back the goblins with such force many flew off the platforms and into the chasm to join their lord. Thorin readied himself for the impact, but he still stepped back. Bella lost her footing and lurched back against Dwalin as he cursed violently.

In the silence that followed, Thorin heard his own heart beating in his ears, and saw only the slight flutter of Bella’s pulse at the base of her neck. 

“What are you waiting for, fools?” Gandalf shouted, voice magnified and ringing. “Follow me!”

They all lurched as one, sprinting across the platform to a walkway as the wizard moved with uncanny speed into the mass of goblins. He swept them from his path like gnats as Thorin and the Company followed, circling up into the higher levels of the mountain. 

He fell again into the cold calm of battle, slicing and cutting his way out of the endless waves of goblins, always cognizant of Bella at his back, or with Dwalin, or Fíli, or one of the others. Her little sword flashed from time to time, an echo of his own, and he fought down his panic. 

She was not helpless, and to expect her not to defend her own life, after she’d proven herself more than capable, was not worthy of him, or her. 

But he hated it. Hated wondering at every turn if one errant blade might cut through her chest and silence her heart for good. He had long come to terms with Fíli and Kíli fighting. He had encouraged their training himself, had ensured they had the best instruction, from the only other dwarf he would trust to teach them, but he’d never gotten rid of the thin veil of worry. It was too easy for even the finest warrior to fall in battle. 

Frerin proved that much. His younger brother had been the finest swordsman in the Seven Kingdoms, songs might have been sung of his prowess and courage, and he had still died, cut down by the reeking filth finally broken at the bottom of the mountains behind him. Everything could be lost. Nothing was assured. Try as he might, he could not keep the ones he loved most from danger or death. Not in this world.

Watching Bella dodge goblins now and knowing without a doubt that she was his _âzyungel_ , that truth drove spikes into his chest. He banished the images of her speared through with arrows, of her eyes blank and covered in milky film, and fought on.

Eventually, the hordes broke, and the first shaft of true sunlight appeared around the end of a long tunnel. Beside him, Bella let out a sound that might have been a sob, if he didn’t know better. Gandalf led them up and into a sparse forest, the late afternoon sun cutting lines through the trunks. 

Fresh air and relief hit them all at once, and happy cries spread through the Company. They stopped well from the mouth of the cave, though Thorin knew they would need to keep going, to put as much distance between them and the goblin horde before night truly fell. The creatures might come after them, especially if what the Great Goblin had said was true. If, impossibly, Azog was alive and controlling them…

The Company clapped each other on the backs and crowed congratulatory praise at Mahal for getting out alive. Gandalf counted them all in a brusque, no-nonsense fashion, but Thorin’s eyes went to Bella.

She stood a bit away from the rest of them, holding her left arm in tight, like a bird with an injured wing. Her little sword was held limp in her right hand. Her eyes burned a path forward, even through the blood and grime on her face, staring into the last distant light of the setting sun. Her hair was a mess of dirt and slime, piled on top of her head like a mound of damp moss. 

But as she turned to meet his gaze, and the sunlight caught her face, casting her sparse freckles in gold and kindling sparks in her eyes, he’d never seen anyone more beautiful in his life.

Her face softened, a slow, hesitant smile curled her lips, and he felt that certainty pulse within him. 

_How have I been so blind?_

The moment broke when Fíli crossed between them with a stormy, stern look on his face Thorin recognized. “What were you thinking, sneaking off like that?”

Bella’s smile winked off as she cut him glance. “Excuse me?”

The sounds of congratulations dimmed as they all heard the warning in her voice. Though he understood Fíli’s concern, Thorin was thoroughly pleased he was not on the receiving end of that voice for once.

“What happened, Bella? Where did you go?” Fíli asked, voice rising. “Why in all Mahal’s mercy did you _leave?”_

“I didn’t _go_ anywhere, not on purpose,” she said, scowling. “I _fell_ through a hole in that damn cage, down a few hundred feet to the bottom of those dank tunnels, and it’s a good thing I did, or else you all might be strung up on pikes or dangling from your feet right now at the mercies of a bunch of goblins.”

Fíli changed tactics, though Thorin could have told him he was fighting a losing battle. Bella wasn’t one to respond to criticism at the best of times, certainly not when she was tired and angry. “So,” Fíli continued doggedly, “you just thought you’d sneak up into the center of the goblin horde, never mind that you could have been caught? What do you think that foul creature would have done to you if he saw?”

“Lad’s right, Bella,” Dwalin said with a frown. “It was damn stupid. You’re lucky you didn’t—”

“I don’t believe this.” She looked between the pair with a hard smile. “I just _saved you_ , and you’re telling me I shouldn’t have bothered.”

“We would have found a way—,” Fíli started.

“Oh, _would you?”_ she snapped, a derisive laugh escaping her lips. “Tell me, Fíli, what was your plan? Were you going to wait until they shoved a spear through your king’s chest?” Her voice wavered slightly, the hesitation catching in Thorin’s mind. “Or were you just expecting Gandalf to show up and save you, since he’s _so reliable_ all the time?”

Gandalf frowned and muttered, “That seems harsh.”

Fíli tensed, jaw working as he tried to see a way out. “You shouldn’t have put yourself at risk. It was too dangerous.”

Bella’s silent fury hit them all like a sharp wind. She stepped forward, sheathing her sword so violently she ripped off a bit of her dress, or what was left of her dress—holes and tears riddled her skirts. “How _dare_ you?” she said slowly, piercing Fíli with a look Thorin knew only too well. “Is my life weighed differently than yours, princeling? Or his? Or theirs?” She pointed at Dwalin, then Kíli, sweeping her gaze over the rest of them. She lingered on Thorin, a hard challenge in her eyes, before she focused once more on Fíli. “I signed the contract, just like you. I pledged my service, my _life_ , to this quest—just like you. You have no right to question anything I do to help you reclaim your home. If that means I put myself at risk, then that is _my choice._ ”

“Why, though?” Balin asked after a moment of tense silence. Thorin glared sharply at him, but Balin stared at Bella with hard, searching eyes. “It’s not your home. I understand honoring your promise, lass, but most wouldn’t throw their lives away for a people they met three months ago.”

Her expression flickered, just for an instant, but Thorin felt it slam into his chest. Hesitation, doubt, disappointment—a harder, keener reflection of the sadness he’d seen as she stared out over an unfamiliar countryside in Bree. 

He could have thrown Balin off a cliff for being so dense. 

Before he could speak, however, she said in a strangled, ringing voice, “You’re right. It’s not my home. But it should be yours.” Her words grew thorns, pouring from her lips fast and rough, and though they stung, they sang with a furious desire for understanding. “You don’t think I want that for you, for the whole bleeding lot of you? I wager I understand just as well as you what it is to long for something that was taken from you, to want it so bad you think your heart will burst from your chest in aching for it. I _know_ , Balin, son of Fundin, Keeper of the Seventh Kingdom of Erebor and all that rot, _exactly_ what you fight for, because I fight for it too, and I don’t even have the clear goal of a _mountain_ to tell me where my home is.” Her voice wavered, and she blinked rapidly. “I might not have skill with a blade or strength at arms, but I have my wits, and _damn_ you if you think I won’t use them to help—with or _without_ your understanding.”

In the silence that followed, Thorin felt every member of his Company settle, their attention bent solely toward the woman who’d saved them, once again, so they might reclaim their home.

Watching Bella’s expression harden, her chin dip up and her imperious glare pierce each and every one of his kinsmen, an image formed at the front of his mind—another sunset draped across a different scene. 

Bella stood at the end of a long, high rampart overlooking barren fields. The fading light caught in the circlet placed atop her gentle brown curls, a modest thing of gold, small yellow and white stones set amongst her hair like drops of brilliant dew. Her face looked older, though not by any large margin. It was fatigue that hardened her features, time gathered in her eyes like a well-worn coat, still lovely and dark, and radiant. A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth as she stared away from him, and he felt hope surge through him like fire. 

He blinked and the image vanished, leaving him with a younger, but no less fierce version of the same woman, glaring at Balin with a challenge in the hard line of her mouth. 

The gift of Foresight ran fickle through his line. Óin had the best skill at reading signs, portents, in nearly an age. It was said that dwarrows used to be able to see patterns in the stone which told of secrets only those who lived hundreds of years later could know. The map to Erebor was one such, heralding the coming of a day when the world aligned to reveal a chance, a fleeting chance, to put things right once more. 

Was it his mind inventing what he wanted to see—Bella crowned in simple golden light, and he standing at her side? Or was it real? It felt real, as certainty pulsed in the base of his spine like a sixth sense, a pull toward something stranger and more terrifying than anything he’d felt in his entire life.

“Well said, my dear,” Gandalf grunted in the silence, his voice tight. “I think we all should remember what it is we’re fighting for.”

Thorin clenched his hands, trying to banish the fear from his mind. _One thing at a time_ , he told himself, taking a deep breath and pulling himself back to the present.

“I never meant…” Fíli murmured, expression bleak with guilt.

“Enough,” Thorin said firmly, shaking the last strangeness from his mind with the vision, fading fast. He stepped forward and turned, throwing his gaze around the Company. “We might all be dead if not for Bella’s quick thinking and courage. Once again she has proven herself and done a far bit more for this quest than the rest of us can claim, and instead we question her motives.” He found her eyes, inclined his head in deference. “We should all be ashamed.”

Bella’s brow pinched in confusion. She sagged, the fight leaving her. Her eyes went soft and searching, and then blazed with gratitude.

Thorin watched her, her words making him wonder… He knew she disliked the Shire, but if she was still looking for home—did she mean in the literal, or metaphorical sense?

_One. Thing_ , he scolded himself.

“Ah, not to belabor the point,” Bofur said as the tension broke, watching Bella warily, “but how did you…do all that?”

Bella swallowed, looked almost reluctantly away from Thorin. “Do what?”

“How did you sneak into a cavern full of goblins without any of them seeing you?” Dwalin asked, voice hard as if he didn’t quite accept Bella’s heart-filled speech. 

“ _Luck_ ,” she snapped, looking pointedly from Dwalin to Fíli. 

Dwalin didn’t react except to grunt, but Fíli flinched. 

Kind and fierce she may be, Thorin thought, but Bella Baggins could be rather cruel, if she wished. 

“Whatever you did,” Kíli said, shooting his brother a frown and giving her a gentle hug, “it was brilliant. I assume you’re the one who tipped the throne? Just—brilliant.”

Bella took a deep breath, looking away from Fíli and Dwalin as she patted Kíli’s cheek. “It’s not like goblins are particularly perceptive. Neither are dwarves, for that matter.”

A few of the Company grumbled, but they all seemed properly cowed and uncomfortable. 

Balin took a moment, but he finally turned from Bella. “Thorin, you killed the foul wretch.” His eyes grew distant, and his voice weighty. “May your vengeance take swift wing to Frerin’s soul.”

He had, after nearly a century. The triumph he felt was marred by the loss of his brother, which would continue to ache until he took his place amongst the dead and saw him again. 

Dwalin smiled, pounded his chest in solidarity. “Aye, and it was a gruesome death, though the slug deserved worse.”

“Vengeance?” Bella asked, leaning a bit into Kíli as if she couldn’t help it, her voice still somewhat tight.

He eyed her, knowing he was not the only one responsible. He might never have had the chance if Bella hadn’t made quick work of its throne. “The Great Goblin killed my brother many years ago.”

Her eyes widened in understanding, sympathy softening her scowl.

“You should make the offering, Thorin,” Glóin said gruffly.

“Frerin’s soul has gone this long without justice,” he said, turning to Gandalf as the reminder of the danger of their situation returned. “He’ll understand if I wait. We’ll need to keep moving if we’re to outpace—”

A howl echoed over the mountains, falling and clanging within Thorin’s chest. The fear he’d held at bay since the Great Goblin spoke of the Defiler filtered back into his mind, but he did not give himself time to falter. _“Run!”_

The Company charged forward, sprinting into the sparse pine forest on tired legs, throwing themselves once more into a chase for their lives. He looked back to see Dwalin hanging beside Bella, who was running as fast as she could.

It would not be fast enough. 

Thorin turned around, the growling, snapping thunder of wargs gaining on them as Gandalf shouted, “Into the trees!”

Dwalin met his gaze, nodded as he passed, and threw Bella up to Kíli’s outstretched arms where he was already perched in a low branch. Thorin unsheathed his sword as the first warg bounded up over an outcropping, slicing through its stomach as it soared past. More wargs followed close after, their dripping yellowed teeth smelling of rot and ruin. If he could give the Company time to get to safety—

Dwalin’s roar matched the thunk of one of his axes embedding itself into a warg’s skull. Fíli danced beside him, slicing twin blades through the air. A sharp twang accompanied Kíli’s bow as he rained arrows into the growing pack.

Thorin looked over his shoulder to ensure his dwarrows had climbed into the trees, just as a warg took advantage of his distraction. Its mouth opened, he swung his sword, too late—

It dropped with a familiar silver knife lodged in its left eye. 

He pulled Bella’s knife out, swearing never again to belittle the value of a small, subtle blade, and pocketed it as Gandalf shouted, “The time for heroics has passed. Up, _now._ ”

Thorin spun, grabbing Fíli by the arm and hauling him to the nearest tree. “You heard the wizard.”

Fíli’s mouth twitched, but he jumped up, scrambling into the branches next to his brother and Bella. Dwalin lunged for the tree holding Balin and Glóin while Thorin followed after Fíli, pulling himself up as a warg lunged for his boot. He kicked the animal in its nose and sent it sprawling. 

“What now?” Kíli shouted over the snarling.

Thorin looked from his nephews to Bella, his mind sprinting for a plan he could not see, but before he could speak, a voice rang out over the trees—a voice he had heard many times over the last century in his nightmares. An impossible, hated voice.

“ _Markhazghzarsul,_ ” the voice of his grandfather’s killer rang out over the snarling and snapping of his fell hounds, speaking in the secret language of _his_ people, _“mahrurukmên ni zarâs? Idriz-e, shaikul!”_

Thorin turned, fear and anger rising inside him to a pitch so fierce he forgot his Company, his quest, his home far over the mountains. He forgot who he had been before the Pale Orc had forced another name onto his shoulders, and murmured, _“Azog.”_

 

~  ✧ ~

 

Bella clung to the tree and watched Thorin turn, a strange, fearsome calm written onto his face. She followed his gaze, and saw a tall orc perched atop a white warg, standing on a boulder and surveying them with cold glee. In the last light of day, his skin glowed almost pale silver, and his eyes shone an unnatural blue. 

The Pale Orc. 

Her heart thumped wildly, the ache in her shoulder more pronounced as her body remembered the last time she’d encountered orcs. The Morgul-poison seemed to pulse anew in her skin, and she shuddered. 

“It cannot be,” Thorin whispered, so quiet she barely heard him. 

The Pale Orc raised his arm, pointed it directly at Thorin, and Bella’s stomach twisted as she saw his forearm had been replaced by a sinister, black grappling hook. He shouted something in a rough imitation of the language she’d heard the dwarves speak from time to time, and the orcs surged forward. 

After the trolls, she’d been barely conscious enough to understand what was happening. Now, with her full wits bent to every growl of the wargs and ripple of muscle in the sturdy orcs, she fought to keep her mind clear. These were not spindly, misshapen goblins, chittering like insects. These orcs and their wolves were an entirely different kind of monster. 

The wargs hit their tree, and she felt the bark snap under her hands and feet. The trunk swayed, and she knew their shelter would not last long. Clutching to her branch, seeing Fíli and Kíli exchanged frightened looks, she felt like a small bird in a windstorm, pitched back and forth, unable to catch her wings and get away. 

Their tree cracked, and she lurched to the side. “Thorin _, jump,_ ” she shouted as he stared at the Pale Orc with wide, unseeing eyes. 

He blinked, looked at her, and his vision clarified. They all made it over to another tree before theirs collapsed, jumping from branch to branch as the wargs ripped at trunks and tore roots from stone. They were forced to stop at the last tree, when there was nowhere else to go. Only the sheer drop of a cliff into a vast valley awaited them. That, and the darkening sky. All of them looked terrified, the first signs of despair settling into their eyes. They had not fought through hordes of goblins only to be thrown of a tree by a pack of orcs.

“Gandalf,” she called, leaping up to the branch next to him where he perched high above the rest of them, “can you conjure fire?”

“Fire?” His eyes went wide, and a hasty smile tugged at his lips. “Why, certainly!”

She ripped pinecones from the branches around her, throwing them into his hands as he blew magic from his staff. The pinecones caught at once, singeing her already ragged hands as she juggled them. 

“Fíli,” she shouted. He looked up, alarm in his eyes as she threw flaming pinecones down at him.

Kíli laughed at his side, snatching a few and switching them for his bow. She circulated cones through the Company, ensuring they each had at least one.

The dwarves eagerly tossed their little fire-balls at the wargs until a solid ring of flame circled their tree. The wargs seemed cowed by the fire, and the orcs looked to their leader, but the Pale Orc had eyes only for Thorin.

Bella felt something then, a new kind of rage and ferocity building in the back of her mind. These were _her_ dwarves—who was this beast who looked at Thorin with such single-minded glee? It burned away her fear, and her pain, and she clenched her teeth.

Somewhere far below, a root snapped, and their tree tipped to the side. For a frightening moment, Bella wondered if this fall, after all the others, might actually be the one to kill her, before she wrapped her arms tight around her branch and shifted her weight. A few dwarves cried out, and Ori nearly lost his grip before Dori grabbed him and pulled him up again. 

She righted herself and stared out over the vast distance, the mountains growing dark as the last light of the day faded behind their crest. The wealth of sky beneath her made something unhinged in the back of her mind crow in triumph. Exhilaration and fear battled in her breast as her heart beat swift and true. Balanced on her branch, feeling the first threads of despair curl into her adrenaline, she felt a soft flutter of wings alight on her hand.

She looked from the sky and stilled. All the sounds of snarling wargs and frightened dwarves faded. 

On the top of her palm stood a bird, speckled white belly and lean neck rustling ever so slightly in the wind. Its small, bright black eyes held hers as it cocked its head, trilled a string of notes which stirred in her mind. “ _Hold on. Help is coming._ ”

Her eyes widened as the words pricked like enkindled stars. The bird had spoken to her. Even stranger, she had understood it perfectly.

And then it was gone, soaring into the dark night to the east. She followed its path, and saw something else in the far, far distance—lines of black growing larger and larger, moving fast on swift winds and wide wings. 

“Thorin, _no!”_

Dwalin’s cry pulled her back from her strange stillness just in time to see Thorin charge, alone, down the trunk of their fallen tree. 

Her heart stuttered as he leapt toward the Pale Orc, sword gleaming with brilliant blue light. She saw the Company trying to rise to defend their king—Fíli and Kíli struggling to pull themselves up onto sturdier branches, Dwalin roaring as his own branch snapped and he nearly fell before Balin caught him.

Thorin’s battle cry swelled inside her chest. She felt his fervor reach out into the air and strengthen her, and she wondered if this is what was meant by battle lust in her spine-worn books. 

The silence as it cut off was like a knife to her gut. Her head snapped toward him. A roaring echo reverberated off the back of her skull. 

Bella didn’t have a conscious thought to move before she was up and sprinting across the trunk, collecting her last knife from under her skirts and flipping it in her hand. She saw the white warg lying beside Thorin’s splayed out form— _not moving, he’s not moving, he’s_ —the Pale Orc rising from the twitching body of his mount with his wicked blade, eyes shining in the new moonlight, and she threw. 

The knife found home in the center of the Pale Orc’s forearm. He howled and jerked back, wicked blade flying out of his hand as black blood dripped down the end of the hilt.

She remembered her sword then as she leapt over Thorin’s body and scrambled back to place herself between him and the Pale Orc. Heart racing in her throat, blood pounding in her ears, she crouched. The steady blue light shone bright in her grip, and though her hands shook, her voice was steady as she cried, “If you want him, you’ll have to get through me, you great, naked _rat!”_

It wasn’t her best insult, not by a long shot, but it made him hesitate. His head tilted, eyes narrowing in confusion, before a slow chuckle broke from his lips and he grunted in a hard, grating voice, “Foolish little girl.”

Her grip tightened. “Call me little again,” she muttered, feeling not like a small, shaking hobbit, but like a warrior out of one of Gandalf’s tales. 

The Pale Orc frowned. His eyes shone brighter— 

And a vice clamped around Bella’s throat, stealing her breath and dunking her in cold fire. That darkness she’d been plunged into after the Morgul-arrow had tried to corrupt her flooded into her mind, and she heard a voice—formless, nameless—rake burning claws against her heart. 

_THIEF_ , it whispered, and she felt a screaming void open up underneath her feet. The fire of the brush swelled and she felt it lick her face.

Her knees threatened to buckle, but she glared up at the Pale Orc. She might be going mad. But all she knew was that this creature was trying to kill Thorin, and she would not, under any circumstance, allow that to happen. 

It was this thought, this stubborn, absolute denial, that freed her. 

Her heart swelled and the presence vanished. She stood firmly on her own two feet. She took a deep breath, and felt acceptance settle into her bones. She’d told them all she was willing to die to get them home. She was nothing if not a hobbit of her word. 

The Pale Orc shifted forward, bloodlust raging in his eerie eyes, only to hesitate again. He looked over her shoulder, growled something in a language she didn’t understand, and took a sudden step back. 

A gust of wind circled her, nearly pushing her off her feet. Her skirts flew foward, her hair went wild. She turned, ready to face whatever decided to come for her next, and froze.

An eagle the size of a hill perched behind Thorin. It opened its beak, and a piercing shriek bound up from its throat. It seemed to echo around her, parting like a stream to affect only the orcs. They stumbled back, shrieking, their formations breaking as the wargs yelped and fled. The Pale Orc stared at the eagle, moving his gaze slowly to Bella. Without a word, he raised the half arm. He pointed his barbed hook directly at her heart, and then vanished into the smoke. 

She saw her dwarves streaming at last down the trunk, Gandalf following behind with a wide, eager grin on his face. 

Bella tensed and snapped her attention back as the eagle bent its vast, intelligent gaze on her and her alone.

“Do you require assistance, young hobbit?”

Her eyes burned, and she realized she’d frozen in terror. _Two birds. Two birds have spoken to me tonight._ “Ah,” she started, clearing her throat, choosing then to simply accept that whatever was happening, however insane, was real, “yes, if you’re willing, Master Eagle.”

The eagle shifted, and it cocked its head toward its outstretched wing, resting only a few feet away from where she stood. 

“Look at them all,” Kíli called, drawing her attention just in time to see more eagles, none as large as the one in front of her, swoop down to pick up the dwarves and Gandalf. “By Mahal, I’d never—” He broke off as one of the eagles nearly swept him off the cliff with its wing.

_Well,_ she thought as she saw Dwalin roaring in outrage as he dangled feet first from the claws of one of the eagles, _that’s an image I’ll treasure until my dying day._

She looked down at Thorin, heart stuttering as she saw that his eyes were closed. It took her a moment to remember how to breathe. “Thorin? _Thorin?”_ she said, falling down to her knees as she forgot the eagle watching her, or her companions being spirited away into the night. 

He groaned as she pressed a hand to his chest. 

She nearly collapsed in relief. “Th-Thorin, can you hear me?”

“Bella,” he murmured, eyes flickering open only to shut again.

“Yes, it’s me. You have to keep breathing, all right?” she said firmly, swallowing her dread at the blood seeping onto her hands from the gashes where his armor hadn’t shielded him. It had to be too much blood, but perhaps dwarves had more than hobbits. She fumbled for his handkerchief, where she’d stuffed it into her pocket next to the ring, and tucked it gently into his coat. “See, I’ve got your crest and your Arkenstone safe. No need to worry. You just—have to hold on for a few more minutes. Promise me you won’t die.”

He grunted in what might have been assent, but she didn’t have time to pry him for a clearer answer. 

She had to get him off this burning cliff. If she got him off the cliff, he would be fine. She straightened, turned to the waiting eagle. “Could you carry us both?”

The eagle dipped its head, though she caught some amusement in its detached voice as it said, “Of course.”

Bella scrambled for Thorin’s sword, dragging it over to him and doing her best to sheath it without stabbing him in the stomach. Breathing hard, she hesitated one last time. She cupped his cheek, leaned close to his ear. Only a few hours ago, she’d thought how lovely it was that he made her feel, but this…

She did not want to feel this. 

She brushed his hair back, wiped blood from his forehead and thought she heard him sigh as she murmured, “Hold on. _Please_ , Thorin.”

She hurried to the eagle’s wing, climbing up as best she could and settling onto its back. The eagle wasted no time in wrapping its talons around Thorin, though any alarm she felt disappeared when she saw how gentle it clutched him close to its stomach. 

The first lurch of its wings was almost enough to send her falling back, but she held on. As she rose into the air, flying on top of an impossible creature with a king clutched in its claws, she prayed to whatever gods or spirits that might be listening to keep Thorin’s heart beating. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of those chapters that have been in my head since the very first thoughts of this fic. This song, and this tweaking of canon, was the whole reason I wanted to write this story. <3


	19. Brightest Shade of Sun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Like The Dawn" by The Oh Hellos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd9vh89To4M&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-&index=19)

They flew for hours, long enough to watch the moon rise high into the night sky and for silence to settle over the mountains like mist. 

Bella clung to the great eagle, fear hammering a steady rhythm in her chest as she thought of Thorin held in the bird’s claws, dangling hundreds of feet above the ground. She could do nothing but wait until the eagle took them wherever it pleased. She felt helpless, but her heart beat a singular, pulsing thought into her mind, keeping her panic from swallowing her whole— _He is not dead. He is_ not _dead._

He would not die. Not after all that trouble she went through to save him.

They flew so long that Bella’s lips grew chapped in the wind and she’d forgotten what it felt like to stand on solid ground. Finally the eagle alighted on a high, solitary cliff, and it placed Thorin gently on the ground. She slid off at once, shivering without the heat of the creature to keep her warm. 

She hit the ground hard as her knees gave out, shuffling forward with cold, stiff hands to fumble awkwardly over his chest. “Thorin, can you hear me?” she asked, voice hoarse and cracking. The wind still roared in her ears, the song of the sky pulsing in her like a second heartbeat, but she pushed it away. His chest rose and fell in shallow dips, but he didn’t stir. “Thorin, _wake up_.”

The cries of the dwarves reached her over the flapping of wings, but she dare not look away from Thorin’s face, as if her attention were the only thing keeping him from dying.

_Please don’t be dead._

“ _Gandalf,_ ” she screamed, trying to pull Thorin’s collar back to check his pulse. 

“Move, dear girl,” Gandalf called, crouching down next to her and holding his hand out over Thorin’s face. He muttered something under his breath, stirring the wind around them with a slight crackle. She barely had thought to realize that he was performing some kind of magic. His fingers stilled, and he let out a deep sigh. “I can do nothing for him—”

“ _Fix_ him,” she shouted as her heart thudded into her stomach. “I’ve seen you breath fire from your nose, surely you can do—”

“ _Bella,_ calm yourself,” he said with a tired laugh, pressing a hand to her shoulder. “I meant that there is nothing I can do, because he is _fine._ He sleeps, because he is hurt, but his wounds are not fatal.”

Her breath coming in ragged spurts, she searched his face. “Really?”

Gandalf’s eyes softened, and he shook his head. “Why would I lie to you?”

Heart hammering in her throat, shivers racking her so hard she nearly tipped over, she sagged in relief. _He’s alive. He’s alive._ Before she could gather the tattered edges of her composure, the rest of the eagles deposited their dwarves onto the cliff. 

Dwalin was the first to stumble toward them, eyes wide and ringing with dread. “Thorin—,” he choked.

“Will be fine,” Gandalf finished and stood. “Master Óin,” he called, waving his hand to get the old dwarf’s attention, “your skills are better suited to this task than mine.”

Bella pressed a hand to Thorin’s chest, felt the small rise and fall, and nearly collapsed on top of him. 

“Come now, Bella,” Gandalf murmured, guiding her back and to her feet. “Give him some room to breathe.”

She could barely stand, her legs shaking badly. “You’re sure? You’re sure he’s fine?” she asked again, eyes on Thorin’s face. He looked so pale in the moonlight, and his brow was almost furrowed, as if he were in pain even in sleep. 

Before Gandalf could say anything, Dwalin lunged and grabbed her by the shoulders. Bella opened her mouth to protest, when the huge dwarf pulled her in for a tight, bone-breaking hug. He lifted her off her feet, caging her in his thick, muscled arms, covered in goblin muck and dirty blood and not a few errant tufts of feathers where he must have clawed at the great bird who’d saved him from the orcs.

It took her a moment to realize Dwalin was crying, a harsh, choked sound which hit someplace tender in her heart. 

“Thank you,” he whispered fiercely. “Thank you, Bella.”

She should tell him he was a filthy hypocrite, that he’d only hours ago tried to reprimand her for doing the exact same thing in the goblin tunnels that she’d done on the cliff with the Pale Orc, but the words died on her tongue. Her body ached and her hands throbbed, and she relaxed into his embrace. “Of course,” she murmured, not caring that she’d been furious with him for thinking to dictate how she should or shouldn’t act. She felt her own shuddering tangle of dread and relief echo in his voice, and nothing else mattered. Not right then, anyway. “Of course, Dwalin.”

He released her after a while, tears shining on his dirty face, and nodded roughly.

On an impulse, she tugged him down by his beard and hit his forehead with hers. Not as hard as she’d seen him do with Thorin or Balin of course—hobbit skulls were made of softer, lighter bones and she didn’t fancy a concussion. He let out a strangled laugh, straightened, and clapped her roughly on the shoulder. “If I have anything to say about it, you’ll make a fierce warrior one day, Bella Baggins.”

She had not the energy to snap back, so she just smiled grimly. 

Óin bustled over at Gandalf’s summons. He turned herbs and bottles out of his pockets, everything he’d been able to salvage from the goblin tunnels, and set about examining Thorin. He removed his armor with some help from Ori and Balin while the rest of them watched on. 

Bella felt someone step up next to her, and she knew without looking that it had to be Fíli. She reached out and fumbled for his hand, which he gave at once. 

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, in a small, broken voice. It made him sound young, without all the forced confidence and solemnity. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I just—I worry. You can’t keep challenging your luck, Bella. Not even you.”

“I know.” She squeezed his hand, swallowing the pain as he squeezed back. _Later_ , she told herself. She would deal with it later, when Thorin was up and moving and not lying on a cliff unconscious. “It’s a good thing I have you to remind me of all my faults. Goodness knows, a girl can’t think too highly of herself, or she’ll find her way into trouble.”

He let out a small choked laugh, and accepted her hug gratefully. “Trouble wouldn’t know what to do with you.”

At some point, she found a seat, probably forced upon her by Fíli when he realized she was one strong breeze away from falling over. She watched Óin work, watched him clean out the bite marks from the white warg as best he could, stitch a few of deeper cuts from the Pale Orc’s blade, which did not seem to carry the same poison from the arrow which had pierced Bella. The rest of the dwarves found their way toward her, Fíli, and Kíli. They all sat and waited for word that their king would be all right.

Finally, Óin straightened as he cleaned his hands, and frowned at Bella. “How long were you intending on keeping your bird-speech to yourself, lass?” he said loudly, his voice loud and echoing. 

The dwarves turned to her in surprise, but Bella merely stared. “Sorry, come again?”

Óin’s frown deepened and he pointed behind her. 

She followed his gaze and jumped when she saw the eagle sitting some ways off with Gandalf, its black, impenetrable eyes on her. “Oh.”

“What did she say?” Óin shouted.

Glóin sighed and trudged toward his brother. “She’s got no idea what you’re on about,” he said directly into Óin’s ear.

“Then how did she call them?” 

“I—didn’t,” she said. “They just showed up. Or,” she hesitated as she remembered the momentary calm which had settled over her at the bird landing on her hand and speaking to her, “they came after…” In any other circumstance, she might have hidden the truth, knowing too well what came from voicing strange occurrences—Hobbiton didn’t call her Mad Bella Baggins for no reason—but her mind was too worn out to care. Strangely, the idea that they might think her mad didn’t matter much to her anymore. “A bird told me to wait, that help was coming. And then they showed up.”

Glóin repeated her words, his face going still as he watched her. Only the wind seemed to voice its concern as it twirled around them, tugging at the places where her dress and coat was torn, as if looking for something.

“What kind of bird?” Balin murmured, lifting his head from his hands where he sat beside Thorin. 

Bella scowled, having about as much patience for Balin at that moment as she did a distant cousin prying after her personal affairs. “I know how it sounds—”

“What _kind_ of bird, lass?” he asked again, sharply.

Balin had treated her with about as much respect as an interfering relative the past few weeks, and his questions outside the goblin caves told her exactly how much he thought of her presence. She considered refusing to answer, but that might just play into his opinion of her, whatever that was—though it clearly wasn’t good. “A thrush,” she said sourly, “if you must know.”

Silence fell over the dwarves, each one of them staring at her with wide eyes. 

“What?” she asked. “What’s wrong with thrushes?”

“Spend a lot of time with thrushes, do you?” Balin said slowly. 

Her brow furrowed. “Of course not. What a strange question. I…suppose it was a bit odd, it being a thrush. I—,” she broke off, the memory unspooling as she stared into the old dwarf’s intense gaze, “the bird which startled me before I met Thorin was a thrush as well.”

His expression froze and after a long, tense silence, he murmured, “By the will of Mahal…”

She opened her mouth to ask what the hell he was on about, when Gandalf called, “Bella, come here, would you?”

Feeling unsteady on her legs, she accepted Fíli’s help, shooting Balin one last look of confusion before making her way slowly to Gandalf. 

“I would like to formally introduce the Lord Gwaihir,” the wizard said as she joined him, inclining his head.

_Lord?_ she wondered, eyeing the eagle with some trepidation. He’d been gentle with Thorin, much more gentle than she might have expected a giant eagle to be with something clutched in its talons. Her world was growing stranger by the day—she’d snuck through goblin mines, battled orcs, and ridden on the back of a creature out of myth, all in the time it might have taken her to read a long book back home.

For the third time that night, she heard the eagle speak without moving its beak. “This is your Bright Eyes, Mithrandir?”

She cut Gandalf a glare. “How many other people have you gossiped to about me?”

He sighed. “You know that I am very fond of you. Would you part an old man from his dotage over a dear friend?”

She fought the urge to roll her eyes as she curtsied as best she could to the eagle. “It is an honor, my lord. And I must express my deepest gratitude at your arrival and rescue of my friends and I.”

The eagle studied her, taking his time to answer. “We heard the orcs raising their war-cries over the mountains. They have been an enemy of mine for ages, and I will not abide them wreaking havoc in my realm.” 

“Still,” she insisted, “I owe you my life, and the lives of my Company. I thank you, and while I am only a hobbit, and know little of the grand world beyond my own understanding, I would offer my services should ever you need them. After this current engagement, of course.” 

He turned his large, ancient eyes on Gandalf. “Mithrandir is an old ally. When Thrush came to plead for your aid, I did not hesitate.”

Bella’s eyes widened. “It…pleaded for my aid?”

“Most passionately.” The eagle scanned her with a vast intelligence, and Bella felt a dim sense of approval in its gaze. “I am beginning to understand why.”

It took her so long to formulate a thought, Gandalf actually coughed in discomfort. “Ah,” she stumbled as a blush rose up her throat, “that’s—very nice of you. Truly, I know how heavy and unpleasant carrying all those dwarves must have been.”

Gwaihir let out a soft cry. The sound cracked gently around her, almost like a laugh. “You are amusing, Bella Baggins.”

_Goodness me_ , she thought as it straightened and unfurled his wings. 

“I will circle the area tonight to ensure your hunters have fled back into their dank holes. May you sleep amongst the stars in peace, and the wind shelter your steps until we next meet.” He crouched and leapt into the air, blowing a gust of wind over the cliff so strong she might have toppled over if not for Gandalf’s steadying hand at her back. 

When the eagle was gone and she and Gandalf were alone, she said flatly, “Did you know I could talk to birds?”

“Did you _not_ know?” he asked, looking at her strangely. “I’ve seen you speak often and at length to your chickens.”

The backs of her ears burned. “I didn’t think they _understood_. And they certainly never spoke _back_.”

“Of course not. They’re chickens. I daresay they care little for anything but seed and soil and the occasional display of one’s ruffle.” He smiled. “I find it rather sweet that you spoke to them without any desire for understanding.”

“It’s not like I had anyone else to talk to,” she muttered, embarrassed and sad all at once. She felt quite a bit more guilty now that she had left them behind. “But they could understand me?”

“You’ve spent years confiding in them. You don’t think they picked anything up along the way?”

Bella stared at him, waiting for the last shattering break of her mind, but it didn’t come. “Why do the thrush and the eagle speak then?”

Gandalf pursed his lips. “The Eagles of Manwë were given the gift long, long ago, before the First Age of Middle Earth. They are fiercely intelligent and cunning.”

She remembered a night, years ago, when her mother and father were alive and sitting with Gandalf on one of his errant visits, when he had told her of eagles blessed by one of the Valar, to watch over the peoples of Middle Earth and be his eyes and ears and sharp talons.

That she should have the opportunity to meet one, to _ride_ one… 

“And the thrush?” she asked before the change in her world became too much to bear.

He shrugged. “The world is a deeply mysterious place, my dear. I have never claimed mastery over even a slice of its secrets.” A frown furrowed his brow. “A thrush, you say?”

“Yes,” she said, trying to gauge his reaction against Balin’s.

He looked down his crooked nose at her and hummed. “Curious.” Before she could ask what about a thrush was so damn interesting, however, he turned back to the Company. “If we are where I think we are, it might be better to rest for the night and set out in the morning. I will take watch, as I think you all are in worse shape than I. One day you will have to tell me all about your adventure in the goblin tunnels.”

Bella hummed noncommittally, trying to reconcile the idea that she could _speak_ to birds. Perhaps her neighbors in the Shire were right to worry, if she’d been chirping around town without realizing. _Stranger and stranger_ , she thought, tucking her hands into her pockets and feeling again the magic ring brush against her knuckles.

Óin eventually dragged her back to a seat, and set about wrapping her fingers again, muttering the entire time about the obstinance of hobbits. The Company settled in for the night, passing around what water and food they still had with them. 

Bella closed her eyes and tried to sleep, but every time she drifted off, she felt the Pale Orc’s gaze on her. At some point, she realized her fingers had found her magic ring. She flipped it back and forth, let it rest in the palm of her hand, mind wandering with no purpose. She thought of Bag End, her warm fire and cozy armchair, and the emptiness in its clean, well-lit hallways. She thought of her mother and tried to recall the sound of her laugh. It had been almost a decade since she’d last heard it, and it was starting to fade, like so many other things. She thought of Thorin, seated in the mouth of a wet cave, his fingers pulling her closer, of the longing in his eyes.

Had she imagined it, pumped up on adrenaline and fear, or was it something she wanted to see, wanted so much she conjured it in his eyes? It had felt real—and in the soft silence of snoring dwarves and wind whistling over rock, she knew she wanted it to be real. 

Thorin Oakenshield was frustrating and stubborn and the most infuriating boar of a man she’d ever met, but he was kind, and clever, and sad, in a way she was starting to understand was very like her own sadness. That kernel of certainty which had blazed bright in the face of a beast who might have taken him told her exactly what she wanted, what she might lose if he died. 

And that fierce heat terrified her. A hobbit’s heart was not meant to burn so bright. Her mother’s Tookish heart had killed her, in the end. Bella had no misunderstanding about what would happen, when this was all over, even if they did defeat this dragon and win Thorin back his kingdom. He was to be a king, and she would go back to her smial, and live out the rest of her sad, lonely days dreaming of a solemn dwarf on the other side of the world. 

When the first light of dawn started to peak over the mountains, she rose, having slept not at all, and sat by Gandalf. 

“You look well-rested,” he grunted, shifting to allow her room on his rock. 

“I feel well-rested.” She pulled her hand from her pocket, letting the ring settle into its depths alone, almost reluctantly. Better to banish thoughts of a dying king with something pleasant like the dark echo of her injury. “Gandalf,” she started, hesitating, “I—felt something when I faced the Pale Orc.”

He smiled slightly. “I daresay you did. Your courage was obvious to all.”

“Oh, well, sure,” she mumbled, hunching over and tucking her feet under her dirty and torn skirts. “I meant… You told me after I woke up in Elrond’s home that my shoulder would carry a shadow of its injury forever. I think I—felt something when Azog stared at me, like I was being shot all over again. I remembered the darkness.”

His face grew tense. “The darkness.”

“And the fire, the cold fire.” She shivered, a phantom twinge in her shoulder. “Was it just because he’s an orc?”

Shadows passed behind his eyes, and he shook his head slowly. “No, I should think not. Did you feel anything else when Azog looked at you?”

She swallowed, chewed on her bottom lip. “I heard something, though I might have been imagining it.”

“What did you hear?” Gandalf’s voice was sharp and low, an intensity on his face she’d never seen before. 

“Thief,” she muttered, hearing the formless voice echo in the back of her mind. 

“Thief? What have you stolen, Bella Baggins?”

“Nothing,” she said, trying to sound irate but finding her temper a sluggish thing, “however you and the rest of the Company certainly name me ‘burglar’ enough that people might get the wrong idea.”

He watched her for a long time, getting that faraway look in his pale eyes which reminded her how strange he truly was, and how little she must know of his life and business. “I’m sure it’s nothing,” he said finally, patting her on the knee.

“You would know,” she murmured. He was hiding something from her, but she wasn’t in the mood to press him. 

Should she tell him about the ring? If anyone might understand what it was, it would be a wizard. 

But some part of her recoiled from the thought, as if in the telling she might lose it, or worse, be forced to give it away. The thrill of being invisible, of being able to single-handedly unstick her dwarves from a tight spot, had been a bit intoxicating, and who knew what kind of dangers might wait for them on their long road. Having such an advantage might make all the difference, even if she knew better than to trust anything so powerful. Gandalf had never been a truly cautious man, but she didn’t know him to court danger outright. 

_I should tell him_ , she decided, opening her mouth to do just that, when she heard a cough, and a familiar grumble that sounded like shifting stones.

All thought of Gandalf and the ring fled her mind. She jerked around, nearly toppling off her boulder, heart leaping into her throat, as she saw Thorin struggle to rise.

“I had the strangest dream,” he muttered, eyes still half-closed as she stumbled over to him with tired feet.

“Don’t strain yourself,” she murmured, pressing a hand to his chest and gently pushing him down. “You’re still hurt.”

He blinked open his eyes, glared up at her for a moment, before a slow, sweet smile softened his face. 

“Please tell me you’re not hallucinating and seeing a bunch of glittering gems,” she muttered, sketching up a rock and throwing it at Óin’s stomach. “Your king is awake,” she shouted, scaring a few of the Company into wakefulness, “if any of you lazy lumpheads are interested.” 

She studied Thorin’s face, growing more and more concerned by his almost beatific expression. “Can you hear me? Thorin?”

“Your hair looks like a bird’s nest,” he murmured, reaching up slowly and catching one errant curl plastered to her cheek and tucking it behind her ear.

Bella went still, whatever fatigue she’d gained from her restless night vanishing as his finger curled over the point of her ear.

_Oh my._

His smile turned sly, and even in his delirious state, she saw that teasing glint catch in his gaze. “Why do you look at me like that, Bright Eyes?”

Heat flushed over her neck and cheeks, but before she could think of anything to say to _that_ , Óin bustled over. “How is he?” he grunted.

“I think he hit his head,” she mumbled, only moving when Óin pushed her away. “He seems a bit…loopy.”

Thorin groaned and closed his eyes, his hand falling onto her lap. “I am not loopy.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Óin scoffed.

Heavy boots thudded toward them before Dwalin crouched on his other side. “Thorin?”

“Aye, that is my name,” he muttered, slipping his fingers between hers. “Why all of you seem intent on reminding me of it, I cannot fathom.”

Dwalin chuckled. “You’ve never been all that smart.”

Bella stared down at her lap, her gaze flashing between her hands intertwined with Thorin’s and his face, eyes still closed, smile lingering at the corners of his mouth. 

Dwalin coughed, and she looked up to find him staring at her pointedly. 

“Ah, I’ll—let you all work.” She got shakily to her feet, putting Thorin’s hand back on his chest, only to feel his grip tighten.

“Don’t go.” His eyes opened and held hers.

Blushing furiously now, she swallowed the fluttering nerves in her chest. “I am perfectly ready to reject your offer of the blood-debt when you are fully conscious, Thorin Oakenshield, but not a moment earlier.” On a mad urge, she swept her thumb along the side of his hand and squeezed, before pulling gently away. 

She straightened, feeling his eyes follow her as she walked a few paces away. A few others watched her, Gandalf and Balin sharing similar looks of sharp interest. Fíli walked up to her and held out a piece of squashed lembas bread. “You should eat something.”

Cheeks still burning, she snatched it from his hand. “And you should stop fussing over me.”

“Did you get any sleep?” he asked, ignoring her.

Bella frowned as she bit into the slightly damp loaf. 

They stood in silence for a while as Óin checked Thorin’s bandages and helped him into a sitting position, making sure he had no fever or infection. 

“Want me to push Kíli off a cliff?” Fíli asked, picking off a few pieces when she held the bread out to him. “He’s got fast reflexes, but I might be able to get Bofur to distract him.”

Bella looked at him suspiciously. “This seems like the start of a rather inappropriate joke.”

Fíli shrugged. “You’ve saved me, you’ve saved Thorin. I think you should just try for the whole set and be— _ow_.” He winced and pressed a hand to his stomach where she’d jabbed her elbow. 

“How about I push _you_ off a cliff?” she snapped, shoving the rest of the lembas bread into her mouth. “Or, better yet, I go back in time and let the arrow kill you.”

Fíli only stared at her, not smiling, but with the smug air of knowing something other people didn’t. His eyes got that bright, roguish gleam, not as quick as Kíli’s or intense as Thorin’s, but every bit as infuriating. “So you only settle for kings, then?”

She forced herself not to rise. “Excuse me?”

“You made such a fuss about not liking dwarrow princes. I should have guessed with an ego like yours—”

“Intolerable,” she muttered, folding her arms against the morning chill. “Insufferable. Impossible.”

“Impenetrably handsome,” Kíli finished, trotting up behind her and running his hands brusquely over her arms to warm her up. “That was what you were going to say next, right?”

“Imbecilic ass, actually.” She pushed him away, preferring the cold to anyone touching her right then, as she still felt like a bundle of lightning-bugs held together with little more than wishful thinking. 

Kíli snorted and shared a pointed look with his brother. “Someone’s risen on the wrong side of the boulder today, haven’t we?”

She swallowed the urge to elbow him as well, only to find Thorin staring at her from where he sat between Óin and Dwalin with firm, intent eyes—eyes that spoke to a purpose forming in his mind. He waved off Óin’s continued examination of his injuries and rose to his feet, shakily, but without too much trouble, never dropping her gaze. The Company grew silent as he walked toward her. Bella’s heart fluttered and leapt and generally behaved like an overexcited child dancing amongst little firecrackers. 

Thorin stopped so close she had to tip her chin up just to hold his gaze. “You saved my life,” he murmured. “Again.”

She blinked a few times, scrambled for her voice as it skipped merrily away with her heart. “Maybe. I also gave you over to a giant eagle who might have wanted to eat you, so before you go getting any ideas—”

Unlike Dwalin, he did not grab her and tug her roughly into a hug. He did not slide up next to her like Kíli and throw a casual arm around her shoulder. Nor did he let her lean into him like Fíli, offering comfort only after she’d shown it was wanted. 

Thorin stepped forward and bent his whole frame around her, folding himself against her stiffbody. He was warm, wonderfully so, and she felt herself relax before she knew what was happening. Her hands slipped around his back, pulling him tighter before remembering his injuries.

“Oh, I’m—,” she started, jerking back immediately.

“Don’t you dare apologize,” he said gruffly, the loose timber of his voice doing unspeakable things to the heat in her spine. He pressed her closer and murmured, “I have never been so happy to be proven wrong in my life, Bella Baggins.”

Somewhere in the part of her brain not focused on the placement of his hands at her lower back and between her shoulders, the hot breath against her shoulder, she recalled her angry pledge to him in her kitchen months ago. 

“You should get used to this feeling, then,” she said softly, “as I intend on proving you wrong as often as I can.”

His grip tightened, and her own hands spasmed in response across his broad back. “Is that a promise?”

She grinned. “Undoubtedly, yes.”

Her heart fit to bursting, she sighed as he whispered something unintelligible into her hair. “What?”

He pulled back, holding her arms gently as he raked his gaze over her face. The first pale pink of dawn brushed color over his cheeks, made him look beautiful in the morning light. With a furrowed brow, and a look in his eyes which made her feel like a young, silly thing, he merely shook his head, and smiled—it was a slight smile, hesitant, only a gentle twitching of his lips hinting at something more just beneath the surface.

She was coming to enjoy that smile rather more than she should. 

“Look,” Gandalf murmured.

Bella fought the urge to scowl at him as the moment broke. _Interfering wizard._

Thorin’s eyes narrowed as they followed the wizard’s gaze, and held. They went wide and soft, transforming his severe face into something gentle. “Erebor,” he whispered.

She turned, his hands falling slowly from her shoulders, and peered into the lovely, sun-kissed sky. A singular peak rose far in the distance over a rolling forest, standing out like a flame at the top of a beacon tower.

The rest of the dwarves stepped up next to them in silence, perhaps for the first time since she’d known them. 

“Home,” Thorin murmured, a hand brushing softly against the back of hers.

His voice resonated inside her, and she slipped a finger along his palm. A bird flew past, trailing softly through the sky in an arc. She saw what it was at once—the same thrush who had come to her last night.

“It’s flying toward Erebor,” Bofur said brightly.

“A sign,” Óin said with a strangely tight voice. “The ravens return.”

“That is no raven, my friend,” Gandalf said gently. “That is a thrush.”

Bella watched the bird fly into the distance, trailing over the first light of dawn, and felt her soul go with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm treating bird-speech as parseltongue here, as Tolkien never gave a satisfactory answer as to why the men of Dale could speak with birds. I'm waving my hand and going "magic" for now.


	20. Believe Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Love Is Mystical" by Cold War Kids](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Aly7niv0nw&index=20&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-)

For having been picked up and used as a warg’s chew toy only the previous day, Thorin kept in surprisingly good spirits as he followed Gandalf down the Carrock to the Wilderland proper below—a vast stretch of rolling green fields and rocky hills butting up against the solid darkness of Mirkwood. His body hurt and his Company fussed, but he was content, for the first time in a long while. The sun beat warm atop his head, and he walked in only mild discomfort, smiling at the light, and the new day.

Having cut and burnt a part of his beard, sending his offering to his brother Frerin where his spirit dwelt in the halls of his ancestors, an acceptance had settled over him. He had spoken the ancient and hallowed words, _“Mafeldmâ guzg khu’sent madarfa, kharm. Mukhuh marbithzu gayuda khama ahu amrâd, ins agayyidi.”_ He had repaid part of the debt incurred over the long course of his life, for allowing his brother to die unprotected, and for taking so long to seek his justice. Azog was alive, but so was he, as was his entire Company. They had scraped through disaster and come out the other side stronger, more certain. Mahal had tested them, and he had proven his worth. 

And at the end of it all, Bella had knelt over him and called his name with a sweet, fierce passion. If that, aside everything else, was not some sign…

His good mood broke somewhat as he watched her rather obviously avoid him, retreat into herself whenever he caught her staring, brow furrowed with an uneasy color rising over her cheeks and under the goblin tunnels’ muck. 

Slowly as the sun grew uncomfortably hot and the endless green fields only stretched on like some vexing mirage the closer they got to the base of the mountains, he came down from his contentment. All the easy peace of setting his brother’s justice to rest and living another day sank into a place of doubt and fatigue. Having spent the last few weeks forcing down the revelation of what Bella was, or what he thought she was, he’d never stopped to wonder if she felt the same. 

She’d made her opinion of him rather clear from the start, even if tensions between them had cooled. While he thought, perhaps, that something had changed between them in the cave before falling to Goblin Town, she certainly didn’t seem willing to be near him now. Watching the back of her dirt-matted head as she walked side by side with Bofur, trying doggedly to convince him that it was Shirefolk, and not dwarrowdem, who had first put weed to pipe, he felt a little like a newly blooded dwarfling trying to prove his aptitude at arms so his blademaster might let him wield a true sword.

She’d jumped to Fíli’s defense just as quickly as she’d jumped to his. She had courage to spare. It was, perhaps, not so strange that she would use it to save him.

When Gandalf broached the topic of this house he was leading them to, and finally decided to tell them of its occupant, any good spirits Thorin had gained after his narrow brush with death vanished. 

“A skinchanger,” Thorin said, his voice sounding flat and raw even to his own ears. “You’re leading us to the house of a skinchanger? Are you mad?”

“I don’t see why I should be,” Gandalf grumbled, looking over his shoulder at the cabin nestled at the edge of the Mirkwood, across a golden field covered in large, bright-blooming flowers of colors too potent for the naked eye. The scene was picturesque, and it set Thorin’s teeth on edge. The mountains might have been dangerous, but he trusted this pretty stillness far less.

“What’s wrong with skinchangers?” Kíli asked, standing beside Fíli and Bella, frowning at the cabin.

“Nothing,” grunted Dwalin, “if you don’t mind your host turning into a rabid animal without warning.”

“A bit like dwarves, then?” Bella asked, looking thoroughly bored of their discussion. Even covered in dirt and blood and other, fouler things from the tunnels under the mountains, she was lovely. 

Thorin shifted, the tender spot in his chest seeming to inflate at her voice. “Not at all. Skinchangers are known for their rage and violence. They’re monstrous.”

“Yes, I’m sure the lovely little garden in front of his house speaks to a _fierce_ and _terrifying_ beast of a man.” She chewed on her bottom lip as she rocked back and forth on grimy feet, and her eyes flicked to him—only a moment before she looked away. Faint spots of red blossomed on the few patches of clear skin at the base of her neck. 

They were all tired, and still reeling. Perhaps she was simply in a foul mood. He hoped that was all. He didn’t know if his pride could take it if it was something else.

“I don’t want to be eaten,” Ori whined. “Is he very large?”

“Don’t worry, Ori,” Dori said gently. “He’ll eat Bombur before he eats anyone else.”

Bombur’s face turned a brilliant red as he spluttered unintelligibly.

Gandalf harrumphed. “Now, really, this is much ado about very little. Beorn is a friend.”

“Friend?” Thorin asked, noting the dissembling twitch of the wizard’s nose.

“Well—a friend of a friend. You remember that delightful fellow, Radaghast?”

The Company fell to bickering amongst themselves, some willing to allow the eating a few of their number in exchange for food themselves, while others seemed entirely opposed to the idea of stopping at all. Bombur actually sat down in protest at one point, though which course he was protesting, Thorin could not say.

Gandalf tried calm their fears, poorly. “It is highly unlikely that he will eat you. The more probable outcome is that he maims you.”

“Ah, yes, that sounds much better,” Bofur said with a high, nervous laugh. “Maiming is much preferable to being eaten, although both outcomes weigh the same when you’re sitting in the hall of your Maker.”

“What exactly does he turn into, Gandalf?” Balin asked, pragmatic to the last.

“I believe he takes the form of a large black bear.”

“A _bear_?” Ori squeaked.

“But I should think he’d be more interested in what tales you might bring him than ripping you limb from limb, Master Ori. He spends most of his time in the company of animals, and likely values news from the outside world.”

“So he’s a gossip,” Thorin muttered. “Wonderful.”

“And what does he think of dwarves, this monstrous bear-man?” Dwalin asked roughly.

Gandalf pursed his lips, considering his answer. “Well, I daresay he will hate you on principle.”

“This is your best option, Greybeard?” Thorin scowled and winced as his chest throbbed. He needed to sit down, or eat something. He felt less like a dwarf and more like a hollowed out, dinged up suit of armor. “Throwing us into the home of a beast who hates us?”

“Unless you have another idea, Thorin Oakenshield—”

“Where’s Bella?” Fíli asked, jerking around.

As if they all shared the same sudden sense of misgiving, they turned at once to the cabin. A small, quick-moving figure was picking her way across the field without any apparent care for their discussion.

Gandalf actually yelped and surged forward. “Bothersome, impatient girl.”

Kíli started to shout her name, before the wizard whipped around and clamped a hand over his mouth. “Take care not to startle our host. He dislikes shouting, and might transform if provoked.”

Thorin moved as fast as he could with the rest of the Company despite his injuries, all of them jogging across the field to catch up to Bella. She must have left a while ago, to be nearly at the door. Or perhaps she’d sprouted wings and flown over, the little trickster. 

His heart leapt into his throat as she picked up a log and knocked it a few times against the heavy wooden door. Why in Mahal’s great wisdom had he fallen for the most stubborn, reckless woman he could find?

“Hello,” she called in a carrying voice, bracing her hands on her hips, “is anyone home?”

The look on Gandalf’s face, half mortification, half pride, was almost enough to make this whole ordeal worth it. 

“Bella,” Thorin whispered when she was in earshot, “come away from the door. _Now.”_

She scowled at him. “Honestly, you’re all—”

The door opened with a loud creak just as the rest of them passed into the garden. 

Thorin had spent nearly a century living amongst humans, so he had long-since grown used to the discomfort he felt at their height. He was not a young man anymore. He cared not for the flash of inferiority he felt at being outsized. He’d met few among the tall folk who could measure up to any dwarf, no matter his stature. But the skinchanger standing before him might be the one exception. He was easily nine feet tall, his head brushing the lip of the door as he peered down at the small hobbit standing before him. Black hair sprouted down the center of his head like a scythe, and his eyes shone a dark, bestial gold.

“Good morning,” Bella said briskly, though not briskly enough to hide the slight squeak in her voice, “my name is Bella Baggins, and I seek your hospitality for my friends and I. We have just come from a rather nasty spot of bother in the mountains, as you can no doubt tell by the states we’re in, and humbly beseech you for food and water, for a place to sleep, if you are willing, and perhaps a bit of time for us to gather ourselves and be out of your—hair.” She stumbled at the last, as the man was not wearing a shirt. His chest lacked the distinguished, fine hair of a dwarf, but seemed to make up for it in sheer quantity. 

Thorin thought about tugging Bella away from the man, whose expression fell somewhere between murderous and entirely disinterested, but he didn’t want to risk her wrath as well. Not if he were about to be ripped apart by a bear-man.

Finally he opened his mouth, and said slowly, “You are a hobbit.”

Bella smiled and preened a bit at that, and Thorin fought the urge to grind his teeth. Stubborn, reckless, and utterly incapable of acting in her own better interests where her life was concerned.

“Why, yes I am. And you are Master Beorn.”

“I am.” The skinchanger looked up, cast a glance which might have been disgust or amusement over the Company, settling on Gandalf. “You are the one they call Greybeard.”

Gandalf coughed, shifted his staff. “That is what some call me, yes.”

“Radaghast has told me of you.”

“And he has told me much about you, as well, Master Beorn. Your home is as beautiful as he—”

“Radaghast is a fool.”

Thorin slowly reached for his sword, feeling Dwalin tense at his side. 

“He thinks a hollow tree is a fine home and mushrooms a decent meal. The little squirrel is addled in the head.” The skinchanger shrugged. “Though he brings his soft rabbits and makes me laugh when the spring rains come.”

Thorin stared up at the man, not entirely sure if he was threatening them or attempting conversation. 

“Quite right,” Gandalf fumbled.

“Master Beorn,” Bella said quickly, “might we impose on your home? I am sure we could come to an arrangement that would benefit both parties.”

Thorin coughed in alarm, trying to convey his desire for her _not_ to offer anything, as they currently had only the clothes on their backs and the steel in their hands and the few packs the quicker members of their party had managed to grab. 

She glared at him, seemingly unaffected. 

“What bothered you in the mountains, little bunny?” Beorn asked slowly.

Bella tensed, and Thorin saw fire flash in her eyes. _Well_ , he thought, finding the grip of his sword and readying himself to lash out at the skinchanger as soon as Bella lunged or snapped back with a smart comment about his size, _it was a noble effort._

“Orcs,” she managed after a long, tense pause, her voice sounding like the shriek of nails on stone. “And goblins.”

_“Orcs?”_  

Bella stepped back just as Thorin stepped forward, the rage in the skinchanger’s voice sending adrenaline through his veins. Beyond the immediate focus on their current situation, his body registered her small form pressed against his stomach. She stood very still as she moved her hand over his, curling around it as he started to draw his sword. He dare not tear his eyes from the skinchanger as he raged, but he felt Bella’s hand press firmly down, urging him _not_ to arm himself. 

“Oh, yes, terrible, nasty things, aren’t they?” she said, voice strong even as Thorin felt her fingers spasm and tighten. 

“They are _vile_.”

“Quite right,” she continued in the manner of calming a child. “You can see why we might need to recover our strength.”

“Do they follow?”

“No, no,” she said quickly, drawing his gaze back expertly. If Thorin hadn’t been so focused on watching the man for any sudden movements, he might have marveled at her skill for beast charming. “We were able to lose them with the help of Lord Gwaihir.”

Beorn looked down at her with clear eyes, his body settling. “You know the eagle-lord?”

“Of course, how else do you think we could wander this land if not for his approval?”

It was a risky claim, especially as Thorin still did not entirely believe his company’s insistence that _giant eagles_ had spirited them away from the mountains. This Beorn might be at odds with the bird, or he might have as little love for him as he did for orcs.

The tense silence held, until Beorn moved back into the shadow of the doorway. “If you are friend to the eagle-lord, you are friend to me.”

Bella tapped Thorin’s hand a few times as he felt her body relax, still pressed close. He tried not to focus on the sensation she left behind as he watched her enter. A wide, forced smile tugged at her lips as she shot Thorin a hard stare. “Wonderful. And I meant what I said, Master Beorn. If there is anything we can do while we are guests in your home, do not hesitate to ask.”

Thorin gave the skinchanger his name, and the rest of the Company followed suit soon after. When they had been shown to seats and were offered some sweet-smelling milk and bread, not the dense, mealy stuff of elves, but a hearty full-grain which filled Thorin’s stomach nicely, he leaned down to Bella where she sat awkwardly at his side. “Were you intending to indenture us all, burglar, or have you forgotten that we have better things to do than milk the skinchanger’s cows?”

“Contrary to what dwarves might think,” she snapped, dropping creamed butter on her skirts and brushing it away, though it only served to smear dirt and muck over her fingers, “guests in someone else’s house should offer to be _polite_ rather than barge in and demand hospitality.”

“Then we’d have to threaten them at knife-point,” Dwalin muttered from her other side. “Your rules of hobbit etiquette seem a bit dodgy to me, lass.”

He had not meant to brace her in, but Dwalin also seemed to distrust the large skinchanger as far as Bella was concerned. No matter her aversion to him, he would not let her out of arm’s reach while Beorn kept staring at her, like he was deciding whether or not to keep her as a pet when they all tried to leave. 

“Perhaps I am a _hypocrite_ and didn’t fancy you lot getting ripped apart.” She scowled, flipped the edge of her dress up to find a clean patch to wipe her hands. “Did you see the size of him?”

“He’s not so big,” Dwalin muttered, though Thorin thought his friend was being rather contrary. The skinchanger was about as large as a troll, and looked meaner. 

“Well, go ahead and antagonize him, then,” she huffed, draining her milk in one gulp and giving an adorable little belch. “I’ll remember you with an appropriate amount of fondness. That is to say, very little.” She scowled, trying to push her hair back on top of her head where it fell down into a mass of gnarled curls. “I need a bath. I’m more mud than hobbit right now.”

Thorin returned his gaze to his food, keeping one eye on their host where he leaned against the door frame. He tried his best _not_ to think of her bathing, though his mind seemed determined to challenge him at every turn. 

“I can give you a bucket, little bunny,” the skinchanger said casually, causing the whole company to freeze. “I think I have one small enough. Wouldn’t want you to drown.”

Bella went so still she might have been turned to stone. Her nails dug into the grip of her giant mug, and she took a deep breath through her nose, nostrils flaring like the snout of a boar in heat. “I saw a river curving past your house. I think that might be preferable, but thank you.”

Her restraint in that moment made Thorin unduly proud, though he had to admit that he would have liked to see her rip the beast man apart.

Beorn nodded, completely ignorant to the imminent danger sitting across his table. He moved into the other room and came back with a bundle, which he promptly dropped into her lap. “Soap and cloth. There is a bend in the rocks as well, to hide from your nasty dwarves.”

Thorin felt anger surge through him as it did the rest of the Company, but at the look on Bella’s face, he bottled it. Her tight, manic smile looked about ready to burst. 

“Thank you.” She rose slowly, keeping that grimace on her face as she moved out of the house. 

When she was gone, and Beorn went back to leaning idly against the wall, the Company relaxed marginally. A loud clang and the sound of shattering wood erupted from outside the cabin, followed by a string of violent muttering the likes of which would rival Nori for filth.

Gandalf coughed. “Hobbits are clumsy creatures.”

Dwalin leaned over the place where Bella had sat. “How much you want to bet Fíli snaps before sundown?”

Thorin looked to his nephew, whose teeth were clenched so hard he worried Fíli might bite clean through his jaw. “Not before I do,” he muttered, eating the rest of his bread and keeping his eyes firmly on the skinchanger. 

The rest of the day passed quickly, with the majority of them heading for the river after Bella came back with scrubbed-red skin and a smell which reminded Thorin frustratingly of honey and cream. She kept sighing contentedly, as if she were intending to cause him physical pain. He spent more time than he should have submerged in the cold river trying to force himself back to his clean, entirely moral senses. 

Before sundown, the eagle arrived, putting to rest the last of Thorin’s doubts about the sanity of his Company. He sat beside the cabin and watched Gandalf and Bella converse with the creature, feeling a sick roil of envy inside him every time she laughed or stared at the bird with wide, awe-struck eyes. 

What exactly was he a _lord_ of? A lord of air? A lord of clouds?

“Might I hazard a guess at your thoughts?”

Thorin hadn’t heard Balin approach and sit next to him, distracted by imaging just how much shit a bird of that size must produce. He frowned. “Are you asking for my permission? After almost two centuries of offering up your opinion whenever it struck your fancy?”

“My guess is,” Balin continued pleasantly, “that you are currently trying to control your jealousy of that oversized pigeon.”

Thorin said nothing, knowing that some questions were not meant to be answered, only endured.

“And how is that working out for you?”

“Poorly,” he muttered.

Balin chuckled and offered him a small piece of honeycomb as he sucked on his own. 

The old dwarf had always been something of a second father to Thorin, the older brother he’d never had. Before Smaug, he’d trailed after the old dwarf’s tails with Dwalin, thinking him unmatched in skill with a blade and his wit. He was, for a long time, everything Thorin had wanted to be—whip smart and wise, strong, but not so strong that he didn’t indulge in kindness from time to time. After their long march to Azanulbizar and then to the Blue Mountains, Balin had been there, guiding him, helping him in all things. He trusted his cousin to be honest, and to tell him when he went astray, and when to follow his instincts. 

He’d never say it, but had all the armies of the Seven Kingdoms risen up and agreed to march on the Lonely Mountain under his command, he would have never set out if Balin had not given his blessing and faith. 

Faith, Thorin knew, that he had not yet won, no matter what Balin liked to say around the campfire.

“You know, I’ve always wanted to keep bees.”

Thorin looked down, finding Balin staring serenely past the fields leading to Mirkwood, his face contemplative as the last of the sunlight sank behind the house at their backs. 

“Seems like something an old man might enjoy,” he continued. “Bees are such fascinating things, with a structure and intelligence unmatched in most any other insect, besides maybe spiders. They guard their home fiercely, even dying to protect it.” He tilted his head with a sigh. “And, of course, they have their queen at the center of it all. She is the most important piece, in the end. Without a strong queen, the hive crumbles.”

“You think I’m a fool.”

Balin scowled. “How did you get that from what I just said?”

Thorin fought the urge to scratch at the stitches on his arm, the discomfort in his chest. “Whatever your concern over my—over what I asked you about, I think it matters naught anyway.”

“You think?”

Thorin snorted, pulling his eyes from Bella as she examined a feather given to her by the buzzard-lord. “Yes, I do.”

He felt Balin’s gaze turn to him in consideration. “Interesting.”

They sat in silence for a long time, long enough to make Thorin’s fingers tap restlessly against his knee. Balin had always displayed an eerie amount of patience for a dwarf. Thorin sometimes wondered if he hadn’t leeched it from his brother, for Dwalin very rarely showed any at all. “Go on, you miserable old crow. If you have something to say, say it.”

He licked his fingers, smacking his lips a bit as he settled. “You’re a clever man, Thorin, but you’re about as dense as a mountain and as obvious as a cat in heat.” He held up a hand as Thorin started to object. “Even before your very subtle and casual questioning over my fated-love, I might have noticed a certain affection on your part for our burglar. At first, I thought it was strange, as she seems more likely to bite your tongue off than do anything else with it.”

It took much to make Thorin feel like a child not yet grown into his beard, but Balin had always known exactly how to feeble him. Or perhaps he was not as old as he liked to claim, and he had, in fact, discovered that the secret to youth renewed lied in discomfort.

“But then, attraction is a strange mistress and might twist even the most rational man or woman to insanity from time to time. Color me surprised, then, when it seems that rather than blowing off steam work things off like adults, you both decided to figure out which one of you might outmatch the other in block-headedness. Honestly, the tension rolling off you two in the weeks leading up to that nasty incident with the trolls was beginning to make all of us sweat. How you managed to find the one woman in all of Arda more stubborn than you, I’ll thank Mahal never to tell me.”

Thorin held his tongue, silently agreeing with him as Bella actually reached out and _petted_ the damn bird.

Balin took a breath, and turned to him with a kindly, pained face. “Watching you after Bella took an arrow for Fíli made me nervous, Thorin. I couldn’t understand it. She’s a hobbit, after all, so I figured you were just guilty and building up to your usual level of dramatics at the audacity of anyone else to be noble before you, but… I saw you on that mountain last night. And I saw you on the Carrock earlier today.”

“Your point?” Thorin muttered, his chest tight. 

Balin shook his head and turned back to the fields. “I don’t know what you’re feeling, and it’s not my place to tell you if you’re actually—if she is what you think she is. That’s between you and her. But I know _you_ , and I know how you tend to throw reason to the wind when your heart’s involved.”

“You don’t like her,” Thorin said, trying not to make it an accusation. 

Balin chuckled. “No, I like her quite a bit. I don’t trust her.”

“Even after everything?” Thorin straightened and looked his friend in the eye. The surge of outrage on her behalf surprised even him. “How could you still doubt her? She’s saved all of us more than once already.”

“Aye, that she has, and if she’d let me, I’d offer her the blood-debt myself for standing between that monster and my king when I was not able.” His voice turned soft, distant. “There’s fire in her eyes, Thorin. I can’t tell if its born of dragon or hearth or something I’ve not yet seen, but it scares me. I _know_ dwarrow-blood and bond. I understand it. I don’t understand hobbits. In fact, I’m starting to wonder if we haven’t been traveling with something else entirely what took the form of a hobbit to toy with our fates.”

Thorin couldn’t help his smile, hearing the dark tone in Balin’s voice. “Is this superstition I’m hearing?”

“I don’t rightly know,” he muttered, shaking his head as if to clear it of foul thoughts. Gesturing forward to Bella where she continued to speak animatedly to the eagle, he said, “Look at that. What about that makes sense? By Mahal’s beard, she’s laughing with the king of the eagles—”

“He’s just a lord.”

“ _—_ like it isn’t absolute insanity.” He sighed deeply. “No, I’m very fond of Bella, and I hope I’m wrong, but I can’t help but wonder why she’s here in the first place. Yes, the wizard is up to something, but… There’s too much that points to her being more than just a burglar, even a prized and dear one, and I don’t like it. This quest is perilous enough without throwing that kind of significance into it.”

“What do you mean?” This fear in Balin’s eyes made him uneasy. His old friend had always been more concerned with matters of the mind and the world than the day to day, but this bordered on Óin’s dread of ill omens and foul portents. Thorin thought again of his vision outside the caves. The line of Durin ran with strange significance. It always had. Was it so strange to wonder if the same could not be true of a queer halfling from a gentle green vale?

Balin seemed to realize how dark his tone had fallen, and he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he was his normal self, weary and wry. “I have a bad feeling. I seem to have woken up to find the world a colder, darker place when I didn’t have my eyes on it, and every leaf and rock whispers of a coming doom. I don’t know where it comes from, and perhaps I’m being a paranoid old dwarf for thinking it has anything to do with Bella, but…” He patted Thorin’s knee, conjuring a hasty smile. “Be careful, is all. Even if I’m wrong, no relationship between you two will be easy.”

Thorin looked at the grass between his feet, turning over Balin’s doubt in his mind. He’d banished those same doubts after Bree, but he’d had them. It was too easy for dwarrows to fall back on suspicion, though he would be the first to claim reason for being overcautious. Too much had happened to his people to let his guard down, even faced with a pair of lovely black eyes and a sharp tongue and a heart whose beating echoed his own.

But she was his _âzyungel_. She must be. Nothing else made sense.

“All of this worry might be for naught,” Thorin murmured, giving Balin a tight smile. “I think my burglar wants little or less to do with me beyond shouting or saving my life. I’m not even really sure why she did, if this is a conversation for brutal honestly.”

Balin rolled his eyes. “Spare me the self-pity and _talk_ to her, you dense numpty.”

“Numpty?” he asked, laughter startled out from his chest. “Is that how you would speak to your king?”

“I would if he’s being a numpty.” Balin chuckled as Thorin looked properly affronted. “No, you’ll know what to do, even if it takes you an age to figure it out. And what do I know? Nothing, when it comes down to it. Maybe she hates you. But I’m sure there are many dwarrows who would welcome her kind of hate if it looks the way she looks at you.”

“Like I’ve stepped on one of her chickens?”

“Aye,” Balin laughed. “Just like that. For what is passion without some fowl humor?”

“You put too much faith in me,” Thorin murmured, shaking his head. “You always have.”

“Are you in need encouragement, then?” Balin straightened, smacked him sharply on the knee. This had been a game they played when he was younger and old nightmares reminded him of all his many failures even then—the older dwarf loudly and obnoxiously waxing at large of his might and valor, of his keen eye and fluttering proud heart. “Thorin Oakenshield, would you like to hear the moment I knew you would make a great king?”

“Spare me, old man,” he muttered, though he could not help but smile.

“I will not. Instead, I will tell you.”

“I know, I know,” Thorin laughed, shaking his head. At least his Company was somewhere else and would not hear another rendition of Balin’s rousing speech about the ruins of Azanulbizar and Thorin’s might heroism. “Although, you’ll need to amend your story about me slaying the Defiler, as he is decidedly _not_ dead.”

Balin scoffed. “Semantics. You’ll kill him one day.” He lapsed into thought, eyes growing distant with memory. “Do you remember the year you sat on the council in Ered Luin?”

Thorin sighed. Of course he remembered. It was one of the most infuriating years of his life, spurred only by the fact that no one wanted an exiled king causing confusion in the ranks of dwarrow-clans. Ered Luin might technically be one of the Seven Kingdoms, but its council ruled, not a king. 

“There was a woman with three children seeking compensation for her fallen husband, killed in an orc raid come down from the frozen wastes one fell spring thaw.”

Thorin nodded. He could picture her, kneeling before the council and asking for relief, since she’d been tasked with raising her children alone and had no occupation of her own. “She had only two children, if I recall, and her husband died at the hands of a cave troll who killed a fair dozen scouts. She wanted someone to watch her little ones while she worked in the copper mines.”

Balin watched him with a smile crinkling his eyes. “Aye, you’re right. And you didn’t let the council leave until they committed to a wing built along the northern passage to start a communal child care for any future tragedies, should they occur.”

“I remember there being some push back because of the burden it would put on the miners,” he said with a frown. “Bureaucrats, the lot of them. I was glad they kicked me off before I could quit myself.”

“Exactly.”

Thorin frowned. “I’ve missed your point.”

“You remember that woman, out of Mahal knows how many you’ve helped over the years in every small way you could. _That,_ ” Balin pressed a gentle finger to his chest, mindful of his wounds, “is why I’ll follow you until the bitter end, Thorin Oakenshield. Not because you can swing a sword and cut an impressive figure on a battlefield. Yes, the story is flashier, and it helps stir morale, but it’s not the reason I’m here. You care about your people, even when you have nothing to offer them but the sweat of your brow and your blood. Everyone wavers, lad,” he said, as if sensing the direction of Thorin’s thoughts. “None of us have spent the last century as perfect dwarrows, but you try. Even if the stone swallowed you whole, you would _try_. And if I have to pour every ounce of faith I can muster into you to get you to see what I see, then so be it.”

Thorin’s throat was tight as Balin stood with a groan. “You’re a soft old crow, Balin Fundinson.”

“Don’t you go running your mouth,” he scolded, patting Thorin on the cheek. “Ah, lad, the world’s been cruel to you. I hope you find some peace one day, even if you find it in the gentle embrace of our soft, sweet burglar.”

“If you keep that up, she’s bound to hear, you know,” Thorin muttered, still caught in Balin’s fierce devotion. He didn’t deserve it, but Mahal damn him, he would take it. “She has keen ears.”

“I know,” Balin turned to the field and waved animatedly when hobbit, eagle, and wizard turned to look at him. “Don’t think I haven’t considered locking you two into a room,” he added under his breath. “I’d have done it already if I thought you’d both get the hint and she wouldn’t kill you on principle.”

Thorin’s jaw clenched as Bella peered between the two of them with sharp, suspicious eyes. 

“Make up your mind,” Thorin muttered, rising and stalking past the old dwarf as he chuckled. “Because right now I can’t tell if you’re trying to help me, or vex me and ruin any chances I might have.”

“Oh, lad,” Balin said with a snort. “You don’t think anything I do will have an effect on that hobbit’s decision? You’re smarter than that, surely.” He shrugged as they walked back into the skinchanger’s house, most of the Company stationed in various places around each room to keep watchful eyes on Beorn at all times. “Frankly, I’m not sure there’s much anyone could do at this point, including you. That girl will do what she’ll do, and the rest of us are just trailing after the ends of her ridiculous skirts.”

 

~  ✧ ~

 

If Bella had hoped a bath and a belly full of rich food would improve her temperament, she was sorely disappointed by the time the sun set that evening. Oh, she felt better than she had in weeks, and though her dress was still ripped to tatters, it was at least free of goblin-muck and blood. 

_Thorin’s blood,_ a voice in the back of her head whispered. She couldn’t get his bloodless face out of her mind, the terror which had gripped her so cruelly when she saw the warg nearly bite him in half. It was making her nervous in this large, drafty house where animals walked on two legs and the shadows seemed to chuckle whenever she turned her back on them. 

There was some comfort to Beorn’s home, she had to admit. The polished wood gleamed with oil, the chairs carved with an ungraceful, if caring hand. The Company was by no means relaxed—all of them kept glowering at the skinchanger when he turned his back, with a lack of grace that would put some of her neighbors in the Shire to shame—but they needed rest and food. The goblin tunnels had given them all a bit of a scare, and they could spare the time. The fire roared merrily and her dwarves were happy to be safe, and warm.

But something snagged in her chest every time she looked at the crudely intricate designs on the walls, the tied herbs and spreads of plentiful cheese and fruit. It reminded her too keenly of the Shire. More to get away from Fíli and Dwalin’s searching concern—those two were about as subtle as the trolls she’d narrowly defeated outside Rivendell—she bullied Gandalf into giving up his pipe. She’d lost hers at the bottom of those damned tunnels. Bombur, bless him, had salvaged her pack and the last of the Longbottom Leaf she’d brought with her, but her poor father’s pipe had been broken beyond repair by those nasty goblins. Fingering the ring in her pocket, she wondered if that had been her price, for finding such a rare and wondrous thing. She might not have made the trade, if she’d known. _Might have_ , she thought rather guiltily as she clambered up to the second level of Beorn’s house and out onto the little porch overlooking his garden. 

The night air was slightly chill, fresh autumn tugging at the holes in her skirts and bodice. She breathed deep and stretched in the light of the night’s stars, only to yelp as a large figure shifted in the darkness of the porch. 

“It’s only me,” Thorin murmured, rising to his feet.

“Oh.” She swallowed back the nervous beating of her heart. Really, she was being foolish. There was nothing wrong with spending time alone with Thorin, as if she were some miscreant youth. “I didn’t know you were out here.”

“Clearly.” He paused, and a smile warmed his low voice. “I hadn’t thought to catch such a master sneak unawares. It is my lucky day.”

She scowled. “Considering you nearly died earlier, I’d agree.” The night went taut with silence, and she instantly regretted the ire in her voice, not in the least because she was still having a hard time dislodging the frantic dread which reared up every time she remembered how close she’d been to losing him. “Well,” she hedged, “in any case, you are a lucky dwarf, to have met such a magnanimous hobbit as myself to keep saving you.”

“I thought I made my gratitude to you clear on the Carrock.”

She weighed the tone of his voice. Did mean that business with touching her hair and holding her hand, or hugging her like she was something precious. “There’s no harm in being generous with one’s words, Thorin Oakenshield.”

A laugh rolled out from him—soft and gentle, making her knees go wobbly and heat sink deep down into the burning core of her. Sweet Shire, how did he do that? “Were you in need of solitude?” he said after a time.

“Of course not,” she said quickly, working past the rather tense color of her voice. “Only the companionship of a pipe and my favorite tobacco.”

There was a slight pause as she watched his outline shift in the faint light of the stars. Still his face was in shadow. 

“I nicked this off Gandalf,” she added, disliking the silence. “Do you, ah, find yourself in need of some companionship as well?”

Her eyes went wide with the meaning behind her question. Confound her wandering mind, had she really just asked that?

“If you are offering, burglar,” his voice seemed to reach out and grasp her with firm, warm hands, wrapping her in some kind of luxurious fur coat, “I would not refuse.”

She cleared her throat, infinitely grateful for the cover of night to hide her blush creeping like vines up her neck and cheeks. Digging into her pockets, she only then realized that she’d forgotten to bring up matches. “Oh, bother,” she mumbled around her packed pipe held firm in her lips as she patted down her skirt.

Light sprang up in the darkness, illuminating Thorin’s face. Deep shadows danced under his eyes and rimmed the fine lines of his cheeks. For a moment, he appeared to her as like a carved, fine statue—ageless and solemn, borne of pale alabaster and sapphire with ebony locks cascading down the sides of his majestic face. 

And then he smiled over the lit match, and heat flared in her stomach. _More like a rogue than a king_ , she thought nervously—nervously! As if she were a spring chicken and he some wolf out of the wilds to eat her up for dinner!

“Have out with it, then,” she muttered as she stepped closer to his match, allowing him to light the leaves in her pipe with a deft, if bandaged hand. She puffed a few times to encourage the leaves to smolder as his smirk slid sideways. “Say what you will.” She breathed deep, relishing the soft burn as it spread down her throat, cleaning out her pipes with the freshest taste of the Shire she could have brought with her.

“I will not. I value my head, and would not dare to draw your ire and endanger it.”

Smoke poured from her nostrils as she laughed, hiccuping once as the warm, heady feeling of sharp smoke and molasses seeped into her bones. The stars winked at her from over her head, and a sense of peace settled over her. “So the King Under the Mountain can be taught after all. Curious.”

She offered him the pipe with an arched brow, her fingers sparking where they brushed against his. Not for the first time, she recalled the rough feel of his calluses against her chin as he held her against the mountain, breath sharp with relief. 

“It appears I can,” he murmured around a nearly perfect ring of smoke, pulling something silver from his pocket. “Your thievery seems to be rubbing off on me, in any case.”

“My knife,” she said softly. 

“Plucked from the forehead of the beast you killed to save me with it.” He flipped it deftly in his fingers, holding it out with Gandalf’s pipe. 

She chewed on the inside of her lower lip. “How odd that a simple potato peeler might achieve such grand heights.”

“I don’t think that’s odd at all.”

She froze with the pipe in her mouth, her traitorous eyes flashing up to search Thorin’s face. Inside her arose something wild, something potent, which burned like a boiling tide through her chest. 

There were some moments, in her youth, when a feeling had gripped her so forcefully she had no other way to explain it beyond magic, in its truest, most primal sense. Magic hummed in the foundation of the world, she wasn’t so stubborn to disbelieve it, even if she hadn’t been taught from a young age by her mother to keep an eye to the skies and an ear to the flowering ground, ever watchful of that second world which passed mostly unseen by simpler folk of lesser importance. If she had learned anything on this quest, it was that she understood almost nothing of the world and its greater workings. 

But even as she had been thrust out her door on a whim and an old wizard’s twinkling eyes, so too had she found herself embroiled in magics she might never have otherwise touched. Stepping out her door and onto the long and winding road might as well have been stepping into that second world, the world of her mother’s longing, and Gandalf’s tales. The world of an errant king fighting to reclaim his home. A world of magic rings and talking birds, where one small, insignificant hobbit might find something more than treasure, something she hadn’t even realized she was searching for. 

The silence of the starry night was broken by a loud howl of anger below. Thorin looked away, but Bella could not. She was still caught in that heightened warmth which had come upon her so suddenly, and which did not seem to be willing to relinquish her so soon. 

“You would think for a Company of old soldiers and great men that my dwarrows might behave less like mewling donkeys,” he muttered, stepping around her and giving her a small nod of farewell. “I will leave you to your pipe.”

“Thorin,” she said before she thought better of it, buoyed still by that ferocious warmth radiating out of her—as if she’d swallowed the sun and formed of it her heart.

He paused at the tall doorway, illuminated now in the firelight trailing out into the night. 

“I’m not sure how far my luck will hold, if you decide to dance with death again. Do try to stay alive. For me,” she added, watching the warm light turn his solemn face into something soft, and sweet. 

For a moment, she thought he might step forward and pull her into his arms, kiss her square on the mouth and ignore the growing commotion downstairs. 

She wanted him to.

But instead, he bowed low, pressed a hand to his breast, all the while holding her gaze with an intensity which stoked the fire in her belly. “I am ever at your service, Bella Baggins.”

She remained on the porch for a time, finishing off her pipe and blowing rings into the stars in a haze of warmth and wondering. Floating in her haze of tobacco and magic, she thought no more of death, or dark things, but of the sorcery held within one half-made smile and sad, sweet blue eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Khuzdul  
>  _Mafeldmâ guzg khu’sent madarfa, kharm. Mukhuh marbithzu gayuda khama ahu amrâd, ins agayyidi._ \- I have slain the monster who sent you to Mahal, brother. May your spirit rejoice in its death, as I do.
> 
> Sorry for the delay, guys. Holiday season always seems to catch me sideways. I will try to reply to all comments sometime tomorrow (since it's late in my corner of the world), but thank you so so much for the sweetness and kindness. I don't deserve you guys for readers, honestly <3
> 
> A few of you had questions about the bird thing, and I'll only say that I am just extrapolating off canon (more book canon than movie canon) and you might understand Balin's alarm with a little research. If you want to guess.


	21. This Body Is Yours

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Mess Is Mine" by Vance Joy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kINi_D0SW0Y&index=21&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-)
> 
> **Also this is your fic mom here to remind you that you're halfway through and if you are bingeing you should go drink a glass of water and stretch <3**

The Company spent three days in Beorn’s house—three days in which Bella was forced, time and time again, to swallow her pride as the great beast of a man continued to test her patience by referring to her by increasingly odious types of baby animals. She might have snapped on the first night when he tried to ruffle her hair and called her ‘little bunny,’ if she hadn’t already heard about the bet going round as to how long she would last before attacking him. 

Her pride was nothing next to her obstinance, however, and so she did her best to smash something else rather than his finger every time Beorn told her how cute her button nose was. 

She spent most of her time outside, sitting in his garden with her arms elbow deep in soil, muttering to herself about how best to trip him, while the dwarves performed small tasks like chopping wood and herding sheep. Bofur proved to be adept at the last, singing to them with his crooning charm and getting them to twirl about in simple patterns like a flock of birds. He even managed to teach a few of them how to dance. The sight of a dwarf waltzing with a sheep might just have been the strangest thing she’d ever seen, even in her new, stranger and stranger life. 

As she spent the sunny hours teaching Bifur and Bombur the correct way to plant bulbs and arrange rows of sweetmint and basil, showing Ori how to distinguish various squashes from one another, and even correcting Dwalin when he tried to drown the cabbages after her lesson at swordplay one day, she couldn’t help but feel like she was back in the Shire—or how she might have been in the Shire, if she’d had friends to share in her work and greet her hello as they passed. If anyone had bothered to get to know her. 

It left a hard, petty stone in her stomach, turning what should have been a happy respite from their quest sour. Every happy, gleaming tomato reminded her of her own garden, the merry chickens far uglier than her own, and the large thatched cabin monstrous compared to her bright, lovely smial—every memory tainted by the fact that she would leave it all over again for one spark of what she’d felt standing beside Thorin, sharing a pipe and a sense of purpose, a sense of belonging. Her time at Beorn’s felt like a hollow reflection of a dream she’d long-since given up, taunting and cruel in reminding her of what she’d left behind. 

A shadow seemed to have fallen over her, no matter how hard she tried to shake it. A frustrating, clawing emptiness which rang close to fear. 

Because none of this was permanent. And her bright, warm smial was the only thing waiting for her at the end of this quest. The thought of returning alone, again, to live a life bereft of magic and friends, adventure and _feeling_ , was enough to make even the sun turn cold where it burned her cheeks.

“No, no, Bombur,” she said on the day before they were to leave, kneeling in soil and helping a few of the dwarves tie tomato plants onto low trellises. For someone as obsessed with food as Bombur, he knew less to nothing about growing it. “You need to give the vines room to crawl up themselves. Like this.”

She showed him, grinning when Bifur puffed out his chest at his own trellis and signed something to his cousin she assumed was not encouraging. Bombur scowled, bending over his work, determined to get it right, lips pulling back in concentration like a child learning his letters.

“Bella,” Kíli called, jogging over to her from where he’d been working with Thorin and Glóin on repairing Beorn’s fence, “Gandalf wanted to see you. I think he’s in the house.”

“Did he say why?”

He shrugged and leaned over Bombur to help him straighten out a vine. “He just said he needs to talk to you.”

She grumbled something about wizards who got out of their chores on account of being ornery and conveniently absent when anyone asked them for help. “All right, gentlemen. I think that’s more than enough work for the day. Our host should be pleased.”

Ori popped his head out of a patch of pumpkins. “How do they even get this big?”

Bella scoffed. “My pumpkins are much bigger than these. Didn’t you see my garden?”

“Perhaps he was distracted by you throwing a pot at him,” Kíli said pleasantly, snatching up a strawberry from her basket. 

“I threw the pot at Gandalf,” she said, though she noticed Ori didn’t look frightened so much as fondly wary. “I would never throw a pot at sweet Ori.”

The young dwarf blushed and spluttered. 

“Yet you’ll smack me whenever you please,” Kíli groused as she pulled the basket away from him. 

“That’s because you need a good smacking every now and again.” She handed her basket to Bifur and blew Kíli a cheeky kiss.

“You’re a horrible tease, Bella Baggins,” Kíli called. “Are you—going down to the river?”

Bella looked down at her arms and dress, streaked with dirt and smashed fruit. “That was my plan.”

He smiled, mischief winking in his eyes as he lounged a bit too casually against the trellis of Bombur’s tomato plant. “All right. You’ve got some berries in your hair, by the way.”

She scowled and began undoing her hair, letting dirt and leaves and all sorts of garden excess fall out as she went. It felt good to be dirty in a wholesome, familiar way again, rather than smeared with goblin or orc viscera. It made her feel like a hobbit, which was becoming increasingly rare as she spent more time with her dwarves.

She rotated her shoulder with a scowl. It had been paining her a bit more than usual since coming out of the goblin caves. As she went, she sent a furtive glance over to the fence to look for some sign of Thorin, but he was gone. The small wilting of disappointment in her stomach made her frown. _Being silly._ All afternoon, she’d been having a hard time keeping her eyes on the dirt, what with him grunting, all covered in sweat and with his sleeves rolled up.

The whole thing was ridiculous, when she thought about it. So what if he’d looked at her as if he were looking at the rising sun. So what if he’d smiled. An actual smile, mind, not one of those stupid smirks of his which somehow made his lovely blue eyes twinkle like damn stars. He’d been delirious and half-dead on the Carrock. She shouldn’t take any of that as the true measure of his feelings. The moment between them on the porch had been…nice, but she’d been tired, and floating high on Longbottom Leaf, which had contributed to a few hazy memories more than once in her life. How many other _nice_ moments had passed between them, without coming to any kind of fruition?

The more she repeated this falsehood to herself, the truer it would become. Once they were back on the road, things would get easier. This idleness simply made it more difficult to remember that he was a _king_ , with a kingdom waiting for him, and that even if she did like him like that, which she certainly sometimes doubted, it wouldn’t make a lick of difference in the end. 

Bella was a hobbit, a no one, in the grand scheme of things. A tiny, inconsequential blob of ink on a grand page, and he was a king. Books would most likely be written _about_ him. She’d be lucky if anyone put her name down in the Shire records. After the quest, she’d go back to her role as the eccentric hobbit under the Hill, an object of gossip and concern, nothing more. 

Her hand found its way into her pocket, slipping over her magic ring, as she’d tended to do over the past few days when her thoughts turned grim. It helped, somehow, giving her something smooth and simple to feel in her fingers.

No one and nothing. That’s all she was, and wishing for more would only drive her mad. She’d learned that much from the Shire, after all. 

She made her way around the cottage and down to the river, trying to banish the image of Thorin chopping wood from her mind with limited success. _Stupid dwarf_ , she thought with a scowl as she went to untie her smock and the front laces of her dress, _looking that handsome and rugged. He has no right. No right whatso—_

Her mind slammed to a halt as she looked up, intending to slide into the cold river with her dress on and simply wash the whole lot in one go, and saw Thorin standing waist deep in the current. Without any clothes on. 

“ _Oh_ , for—,” she spluttered, stepping back with a jerk and catching her foot on a rock. Her yelp broke whatever cover she might have gained from the rushing of the river as she fell flat on her ass. 

“Bella,” he called in surprise, “are you all right?”

_Of all the ridiculous questions—_ “I’m fine,” she said, face burning as she got back to her feet. Her eyes flashed up, and then down again at once, catching no more than a cursory glance—a leg, perhaps, or maybe one of his arms. He was so well-muscled it was hard to tell— _Stop that at once, Bella Baggins._ “I—I didn’t expect anyone to be in the river.”

“It’s yours,” he said, much closer than he should be. “I’ve finished.”

She shook her head vigorously. “No, no, I’ll—” She looked up again only to see him climbing out of the water and turned abruptly away. It was too fast to see anything specific, but the general impression she got was not helping her current state. 

Thorin was a warrior. She knew that. She’d seen him train before, and had enough of an imagination to guess what kind of body lay under his armor. Damn her, she’d pictured it enough in those infrequent moments she could forget the snoring, smelly dwarves sleeping around her and drift into blissful dreams of strong muscles and pale blue eyes—dreams she had never felt any lick of shame or guilt over. She wasn’t about to censor her own bloody _thoughts_. 

Imagining and seeing the proof standing in front of her, glistening with water and blushing pink in the chill of the river, however, was a different matter altogether. 

He was broad and barrel-chested, with thick, dark hair covering almost the entirety of his chest and stomach. The effect was surprisingly nice. Most hobbit hair was located on one’s head or toes and she’d half-wondered if it might turn her off, or make her more conscious of the fact that he was strange and abnormal and not anything she might find appealing in a hundred years. 

It didn’t. Quite the contrary. 

Tattoos, like the ones Dwalin wore on his skull, banded his upper arms and shoulders, navy and black ink standing out against his pale skin, with, remarkably, some flickers of silver, as if his skin had been threaded with molten metal. Scars cut lines over the rest of his chest and arms, tiny slashes of pink in between all the dark hair, imperfections which only made him look more rugged, and reminded her of his prowess, and his ability to survive. 

He was _fit_ , damn him, with muscles which looked carved from stone, every bit as defined as Dwalin’s, whose physique she’d come to appreciate during their training together, but he was leaner, more streamlined. And while she could admire Dwalin with a detached, spectator’s eye, distinguishing him entirely from the man, as if she were considering a crop of squash for its color and size and not its potential romantic qualities, staring at Thorin felt more like she’d been starving for years and someone had just placed a steaming cherry pie in front of her and told her to look, but not touch. 

She jerked to the side as he stepped up around her, ready to clap a hand over her eyes to save her from the full, overwhelming sight of him, but found it unnecessary. He’d put on his pants, thankfully. His chest was still bare, and this close, she could imagine reaching out and tracing the tattoos—

She mentally slapped her hand away. _Stop that._

“I was done anyway,” he said, his voice low and far too polite. That alone made her nervous. Thorin polite was Thorin uncomfortable, which usually meant more grief for her in the end when he recalled his enormous ego. 

Bella only hummed as he sat and slid on his boots, still, frustratingly, shirtless. Should she leave or try to start a conversation? She supposed she could just lay down in the river and let it swallow her mortification. Or perhaps she might drown, if she were lucky.

“You should ask Glóin to make you a new dress.”

She looked up, startled. The statement was so innocuous and random, it took her a moment to understand. Also, the wealth of glistening, sculpted male chest was making it hard to concentrate on much of anything. For the first time in a long while, she wondered how long it had been since she’d last scratched that particular…itch. Five years, maybe? Sweet Shire, she couldn’t even remember. “Why should I need a new dress?”

He looked up from his boots with a slight smile. “You lost most of yours in the goblin tunnels. What with your tendency to throw yourself into harm’s way at every opportunity, it might be smart to prepare for the worst.” He sent a lingering look over her. “You seem to be wearing this one out quickly with all your gardening. I hadn’t realized the art was so taxing.”

Something fluttered in her stomach, that same traitorous warmth which had accosted her their first night in Beorn’s house. “It is if you’re doing it right.”

He chuckled, eyes holding on her face.

“I—I suppose that might be a good idea,” she managed. “Though I’m not sure Glóin will appreciate the work. I’m sure he’ll have something to say about hobbit fashion and how inferior it is.”

“Glóin is one of the best tailors I’ve ever met. You’ll provide him with a challenge.”

“Because my figure is so challenging?”

“It can be,” he murmured.

Heat, inviting and pleasant, dropped into the base of her spine. It certainly seemed like he was flirting. But she could never really tell with him. Odds were that he’d start shouting at her in a few minutes and leave her very confused and very worked up, just as he had been doing for the past four bloody months. “That’s—well.” She tore her gaze from the question forming in his eyes and cleared her throat. “I suppose this one is looking a bit worse for wear. Maybe Beorn has some extra linen stashed away somewhere he’d be willing to part with.”

“Perhaps we can muck out his stables for him in payment,” he muttered.

She grimaced. “I… _might_ have been hasty in offering service in exchange for our room and board.”

“Are you admitting fault, burglar?” he asked with a grin in his voice.

She scuffed her big toe against the muddy rock at her feet. “Maybe.” 

He laughed, and the sound pulled her eyes up from the ground. He was sitting up straight now, ringing out his hair before he twisted it back into a knot. The movement only served to display his muscled arms, still dripping lightly, like a great, knotted tree drying in the bright sun after a sudden shower. Her eyes followed a trail running down his chest, through the valley of his dark hair and onto his stomach. She could have bounced a coin off it, it was so— 

“Are you all right?”

“Hmm?”

“You seem troubled.”

_Yes, and it’s because of your stupidly touchable chest, you infuriating dungpile._ “Do I?”

He dropped his arms and studied her face, brow furrowing. “I… Bella, I need to apologize.”

She blinked, trying to reorder her thoughts. “For what?”

“I’ve made you uncomfortable.” He shifted, rubbing a hand along his beard. “I never… I acted rashly on the Carrock. I was grateful to you for saving my life, and I was—glad you were safe. I was too familiar with my thanks. Then and…before. Forgive me if I have made you feel pressed upon.”

She scrambled for words, but could only repeat, “Pressed upon?”

His jaw clenched, and she marveled at the change in his expression. He looked unsure of himself. It didn’t sit well on his features, those broad, sharp lines more accustomed to confidence and pride, nor did he seem to find much comfort in it. “I know you’ve been avoiding me.”

“Like you avoided me after Rivendell?” she asked quickly, needing to reclaim some kind of control over the conversation.

He stilled and met her gaze. 

“Surprisingly, I noticed,” she said wryly, glad to hear some bite in her voice. “You are many things, Thorin Oakenshield, but subtle is not one of them.”

“I was not avoiding you.”

“Neither am I.”

“Something is bothering you. You’re fidgeting.”

She dropped her hands from picking dirt off her dress. “I am not.”

His brow furrowed. “You jumped five feet into the air when you saw me just now and tried to run away. It would be amusing, if it wasn’t the third time today.”

She ignored the rest of his insinuation, and latched onto the first. “I thought you were naked.”

He snorted. “I hadn’t thought your hobbitish sensibilities so tender—”

“I’m not uncomfortable,” she snapped. “I am full of comfort. I have never been so comfortable in all my life.”

Up tugged the side of his mouth, and the sight of him with his hair tied up, shirtless, and smelling faintly of sweat and fresh air making her want to tackle him right then and kiss the stupid smirk off his damn lips. Oh, she’d gone too long without any comforts of the flesh, if this pompous ass was giving her so much trouble. Far too long. That must be the root of the problem.

“Bella—”

“Will you at least put your shirt on,” she said before her mind could spiral into the clouds entirely. 

His expression turned searching, confused. “I was joking about your sensibilities.”

“Perhaps it’s not my sensibilities that need help right now. Perhaps I find you sitting there half-naked distracting.”

Her ears burned as his expression cleared, and then his smile blazed in full force. “Is my nakedness distracting, burglar?”

“How would _you_ feel if I sat here trying to have a conversation in nothing but my trousers?”

It was wrong thing to say. 

For the first time in many weeks, she caught a flash of mischief cross his expression, of anticipation. He rose and bent for his shirt, holding her gaze all the while with a hesitant, dawning gleam in his eyes. “Satisfactory?” he asked when his shirt was on and he sat again on his boulder. 

“Yes.” She pursed her lips, trying to gather her thoughts into some semblance of coherence. 

“If you need more time—,” he started, voice getting that low, rumbling bass that made speech for her rather difficult.

“You are not making me uncomfortable.” She braced hands on her hips to stop them from twisting in her dress. “You are simply— _vexing_ ,” she said, giving him a pointed glare. “Me. You are vexing to me.”

“If I can elucidate,” he said pleasantly, still smiling, “I would.”

“You called me Bright Eyes,” she murmured, the words falling from her lips before she could stop them.

Some of the teasing mirth in his eyes dimmed. He went very still, watching her warily.

“You held my hand and you looked at me like—,” she continued, her voice losing some of its strength as she fought the nerves twinkling in her chest, making her feel as if her heart were bubbling up and over like sparkling wine in a tall, thin glass. “I don’t know what you mean when you say you were too _familiar_ , because you seem to be acting very familiar with me right now and not caring one lick. You’ve acted _familiar_ with me many times. Do you mean familiar in a physical sense? Because you’ve touched me before, and you didn’t feel the need to apologize. Or are you speaking of familiarity of address, which I would argue against, since you insist on calling me _burglar_ rather than solely by my damn name, as I’ve asked you to do many times before.” 

His jaw clenched, but as he opened his mouth to answer, she found the thread of her anger and lunged for it. “In fact, I find your treatment of me the past few months all together _bamboozling_. One day you act like I’m the most disagreeable person you’ve ever met, like I’m some mysterious stain on the bottom of your boot you want to wipe off, and the next you’re saving my life and saying sweet, lovely things and pulling me into lingering embraces that are far too _familiar_ for mere business associates. You smirk at me and make me feel—and when you stare at me like _this_ ,” she added erratically, watching his pale blue eyes clear and sharpen, “I don’t know what you think of me. And that makes me _frustrated_ , not uncomfortable. It is not a lack of comfort I gain from you, but _sense_ , and that is, as I have said, frustrating.” Her cheeks burned and her breath came quickly. She was very conscious of the space between them, but she refused to drop his gaze.

“Why is it frustrating?” he asked slowly.

_“Why?”_ She opened her mouth, closed it again, then said, “Because it places me in the strange position of having to compensate for your _mood_ whenever you decide you like me again, which is more fickle than the weather.”

His eyes were bright in a way which made her want to jump out of her skin. “Does my opinion of you matter?” 

Her jaw clenched in frustration and she found herself stepping forward, pitching her voice low so she wouldn’t draw any curious eyes from the cabin. “You know damn well it does, Thorin Oakenshield. Don’t give me this wide-eyed ignorance. It doesn’t look good on you.”

That was a lie, but he didn’t need to know what she thought looked good on him or not. 

He shifted in discomfort. “You’ll forgive me if I say you’re not the most plain-spoken woman I’ve ever met.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that you speak in riddles and twist your words into complex knots that have me puzzling out your motivations at every hour of the day,” he said in a rush. His jaw feathered as he tried to rein in his voice. “Mahal save me, Bella Baggins, but you cannot be angry with me for concealing and obscuring my thoughts while you do the same.” His smile was sharp. “What am I saying? Of course _you_ could be angry. _You_ could be angry at the sky for raining on you.”

“Yes, good,” she snapped, carefully breezing over his insinuation that she was at all to blame for their current predicament, “ _insult_ me. Then you can ask me tomorrow why I ignored you the rest of the night.”

He balled his hands into fists on his lap, and relaxed them again. “What would you have me say?”

“The truth,” she nearly shouted. “What else?”

“You say that like I should expect a welcome audience,” he muttered, looking down. “You’ve made your opinion of me very clear.”

She stared at the furrow in his brow, the troubled tightness at the corner of his eyes, the soft, fine lines which ran into his hair streaked with grey along his temples. The urge to smooth them, to fit her hand around his sharp cheek, to feel those solemn features for herself, was so strong her fingers twitched. 

Was he afraid? Of her? Or of how she might react to…whatever his truth was? 

“If you’re talking about what I said to you before the trolls—”

“This morning you told me I was little better than a rutting boar in velvet and chainmail,” he said in a flat tone.

She tried not to smile, but she’d been rather pleased with that one. “And I frequently call Gandalf a shambling pile of hearth rags. It doesn’t lessen my affection for him.”

A dark, mildly disgusted look came into his eyes then. “I had not realized you were thinking of courting the wizard.”

_“Courting?”_ she squeaked in a horribly shrill voice. Her heart jumped into her throat at the idea that he was—well that somewhat answered her question, in about as frustrating a manner as she would have expected from him. “I—oh, honestly,” she muttered, not knowing whether to be happy or mad or confused or all three at once. “I’m not thinking of _courting_ anyone. Or—not in the strictest sense. I mean who would be on this— _Courting_? Really.” 

“Because the very idea is repellent to you, or are your choices lacking?”

“Right now, in this river? No, the fishes look like fine fellows worthy of my—”

“ _This_ ,” he said, his voice cracking like a whip, “this is what I mean. You turn everything into a joke and can’t express yourself without seeking to insult me. Why on earth should I be honest with you if all I can expect are the barbs of your tongue?”

“Has it crossed your mind that my tongue is barbed because that’s what you _expect_? If you assume I’ll be nasty, then why on earth should I not be?”

“Right.” His expression fell, and he shook his head once. “Because expecting your good opinion of me is beyond the realm of possibility, I assume.”

Her mind wrapped around the disappointment in his voice, the utter emptiness in it, and her heart lurched. She looked at the sky to regain her composure, trying not to hate the idea that he thought her indifferent to him. This was getting so twisted. “I thought my opinion of you was obvious, or perhaps I would not have bothered _saving your life_.”

He bristled at her tone. “What is your obvious opinion of me, then?”

“I asked you first.”

They stared at each other, and Bella fought the urge to scream in frustration. At herself, at him, she didn’t know, but the tension between them was growing so taut she felt it like a physical ache inside her, like a cord was wrapped around her waist and pulling her toward him, ready to snap at the slightest shift and send her tumbling forward into those sharp, pale blue eyes. 

_Just tell him._

But she couldn’t, damn her, and damn her ridiculous pride. No. Damn _him_ , for putting her in this position in the first place. The words lodged like stones in her throat and when she opened her mouth, she could barely make a sound. 

He seemed equally as mute, as if the ability to speak, to communicate, had been stolen from them both and they were left standing next to an idyllic river and sweet-smelling fields, neither one of them able to simply come out and give voice to the _thing_ pulsing between them like a second sun. 

And so she simply gave up, and kissed him. 

Time stuttered and sped around her as she stepped forward and pressed her mouth to his. If she’d thought it would be passionate, like the kisses in her books, which always spoke of fireworks going off in the background and tongues battling for dominance, she was mistaken. 

Their noses bumped and her hands, balled into fists, sort of hit him in the shoulder as she surged forward gracelessly. He gave a startled noise as she nearly unbalanced him, grabbing onto her waist not with the urgent need of a lover but the flailing grip of a man in danger of tipping sideways. 

It took them both a moment to settle, Bella pushing back on his shoulder as he tried to right himself. They stared at each other for what felt like an eternity, before she felt the first stirrings of embarrassment, followed quickly by anger. _Of course_ this would happen the moment she actually tried to kiss the damn dwarf. If he hadn’t built her up to this frustration, she might—

He kissed her back, and all thought wiped clear of her mind. His hands turned purposeful, pulling her flush against his chest. She moaned in surprise as she felt his teeth press against her lower lip—and then yelped as his boot came down on her toe and he bit her. 

“ _Ow_ ,” she said, turning her head and wincing. He hadn’t drawn blood, but her lip throbbed along with her toe.

“Sorry,” he grunted.

Breathing hard, she pulled back just enough to see his face, to watch the red flush rise on his pale cheeks above his beard, to see his eyes wild and bright. It was the same look she’d seen from him on the Carrock, the same she’d felt when he’d saved her on the mountain. It was longing, and surprise, and something deep, _deep_ , that knocked against the door of her chest.

Her heart unfurled, spreading heat through her whole body and making the edges of the world dim. The awkward tension in her limbs bled as she turned liquid in his gaze. She swallowed tightly, let her forehead rest slowly on his. “That went about as well as I’d expected.”

His chuckle, almost nervous, resonated under her hands, an echoing tremor going through her spine. “You surprised me.”

Her fingers spread of their own accord, sliding tentatively up his neck. She felt the muscle shift in his jaw as she pulled back and saw his half-lidded eyes watching her with rapt attention.

“Sorry,” she murmured, marveling at the thick softness of his beard.

His grip relaxed and smoothed, hands moving from the sides of her hips to her lower back, one up, one _down._ “Don’t be.”

“I’m not.”

He nudged her cheeks with his nose, gently, searching. “Good.”

She grinned. Her heart beat felt like it was everywhere, in her chest, in her stomach, in her back, arched as his hands, his gloriously large hands, wrapped around her. She stood bracketed by his thighs, leaning fully against him, and she wondered what she’d been so angry about only moments before.

“Bella,” he sighed, his lips hovering just beneath hers, beard ghosting over her chin. “You still haven’t answered—”

She kissed him again, and this time it was not awkward, or sudden, or jarring. It was slow, and sweet, like a peppermint melting on her tongue. A low rumble went through his chest, stirring that swirling fire in her stomach. This, _this_ , is what she’d wanted, the brief, tenuous brushing of his lips against hers—at odds with the greedy press of his hands at her back. The way he relaxed under her touch, all that scarred muscle and ink, the _strength_ of him, giving way to a softer, gentler unmaking. 

When she pulled back he followed, chasing her lips and catching her chin. She hummed a laugh, sliding her trembling fingers over his mouth to put some barrier between them.

A voice whispered in the back of her mind, _too fast, too fast_ , but the rest of her…

The rest of her wanted to devour him whole and damn the consequences. 

His eyes blinked open, and the longing, the sheer, unbridled desire in them, made her feel pinned and pierced through with a sweet, singing arrow. Any thought of fast or slow fluttered out of her mind.

Until a cough broke the silence. 

She tensed as Kíli said merrily, “You forget about Gandalf, dear Bella? He’ll be so upset. Although, I can see why you’d rather stay here. There’s much less fondling in the house, unless you’re one of Dwalin’s axes.”

All the coiled heat and shuddering sweetness curdled in her stomach. She pulled her hands slowly from Thorin’s face and took a deep breath. “Do you have any last words for your nephew? I think I’m going to disembowel him.”

She stepped back, and Thorin’s hands fell from her waist, his cheeks red and his eyes like roiling stormclouds. “He is my kin. I should be the one to remove his too-clever head from his shoulders.”

“I’m not sure you two are quick enough to catch me,” Kíli mused, leaning against the fence on the other side of the river with a smile so wide all his teeth shone in the sunlight. “You seem rather distracted—”

Bella was saved the trouble of pelting him with a rock as Thorin stood and turned his full glare on his nephew. Kíli lurched upright, a flash of ingrained fear crossing his face before he hastily replaced his grin. “Really, I’m so happy for you two. I can only imagine how your bliss is heightened by all the shouting and growling and general unpleasantness.” He ran off at once, calling, “Take your time. I’ll stall for you. Because I am _that_ generous.”

The sound of the river rushed merrily beside them, putting a rather queer mood over the tension of the moment. 

“He was often dropped on his head as a babe,” Thorin said.

“On accident or on purpose?”

He snorted and looked back at her. 

Bella kept her gaze on the river, heart rapping a staccato rhythm against her sternum. She still felt Thorin’s hands on her waist and back, his lips gentle on hers. But her fleeting anger at Kíli did nothing to summon her courage back from the lazy ball it had curled into after Thorin’s kiss. “I should clean up,” she muttered. “That is why I came here. Not to—well.”

Thorin cleared his throat. “Right.”

She chanced a look at him out of the corner of her eye, and grinned at the dirt smeared at his temples. 

He met her gaze with a questioning brow.

She gestured to his face and raised her dirty hands. “Gardening.”

Thorin sighed, though the gesture was tinged with the lingering heat in his eyes, and walked past her to the river, giving her space—but not too much space, she noticed with a little thrill. He dipped hands in the river and scrubbed his face, watching her all the while.

Whether it was the question in his eyes, the fear and hope, or her own bubbling desire, she stirred her feet to movement. She followed him to the river, determined to squash this awkward, uncomfortable embarrassment between them. They’d kissed, that was all. Neither of them were younglings, though they might have fumbled like they were for a bit, and she would not let some idiot boy’s glee make her feel like a wanton for _kissing._

She started unlacing her dress, her fingers stiff and slow as she felt Thorin’s gaze fall squarely on her. “You should probably leave,” she murmured, smiling. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Kíli starts singing suggestively when one of us doesn’t show up in the next ten minutes.”

“You’re not giving me much incentive to leave.”

Her hands stilled, her bodice half-unlaced. She looked at him, chest growing tight at the attention he was giving her hands, and lifted one brow. “Perhaps you’ll need to practice some self-restraint.”

His eyes locked with hers and the sun between them blazed bright and molten again. “I am.”

“Would it help if I insulted you again?”

“No.”

She laughed over her jumping pulse, the sound breathier than she would have liked. 

He stepped toward her carefully, and she had the faint impression that he might just throw all caution to the wind—and, truth be told, she didn’t much care either way. But he simply bent and gave her a soft, chaste kiss, fingered an errant curl draped over her shoulder with a surprisingly delicate touch. He pulled back, just enough to say, “I intend to revisit our conversation at some point, Miss Baggins.”

Her eyelids shuttered at his voice, low and rasping over her lips. “I look forward to it, your majesty.”

His smile went crooked as he swept one more lingering gaze over her face and down to her hands, shook his head almost in disbelief, and left her to the river. 

She watched him, not bothering to stay her eyes as they mapped the breadth of his shoulders and the lovely swell of his ass. When he disappeared around the side of the cottage, she slipped with a humming laugh into the river, wondering if all the snapping and snarling had been worth it after all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo that happened. <3


	22. Show Me Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Only Love" by Ben Howard](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctUiRLkclkw&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-&index=22)

Thorin sat in Beorn’s cottage that night and listened to Bofur sing, the tune pleasant and catching—something about a pretty miner’s daughter who tricked a poor dwarf into a kiss. He drank weak, honey-sweet beer and sat on little more than shaped straw in a house whose host he did not trust. By all accounts the night should have been frustrating, and yet…

Bella’s eyes found him across the room, and heat sprang up in his chest. He couldn’t find it in himself to want to be anywhere else.

Her lips quirked up as her gaze held, and it was all he could do not to stride across the room, pick her up, and find somewhere quiet and warm where he might steal that smile and all others he could tease from her soft lips, hidden away with her from now until the world’s end.

She had kissed him. Mahal bless and keep him sane, she had _kissed_ him. 

“I take it you two had a nice chat?” Balin asked beside him, puffing on his pipe. 

Thorin dragged his gaze away from those lovely black eyes and tried to resettle his thoughts. “Of a kind.”

Balin shook his head with an exasperated grin. 

“I need to tell her,” Thorin murmured, unable to stop from looking at her again. All afternoon and evening, he’d felt his gaze drawn to her like a magnet, like she was a light in a dark tunnel and if he looked away for one moment she might vanish. While he listened to the wizard explain his need to leave them, again, he had stared at her, watched her brow furrow in unease and her lower lip worried between her teeth. He hoarded every flicker of movement, every little quirk of her person—the bunching of hands in her skirt, the insistent curl which kept coming undone from her ramshackle knot atop her small head. If he’d been holding himself back from noticing her before, he had stopped the moment her lips touched his. The vast, glorious wealth of her put him to shame. “I need to tell her everything.”

Balin looked at him, brow furrowed. “You mean…?”

Thorin nodded.

“How much does she know?”

“She knows about the Arkenstone—what it is, at least.” His chest grew tight and unwound again as she laughed at something Dwalin said. “More than that, nothing.”

The dragon-sickness was something ever on his mind of late, vying for place with the rest of his thoughts. His kin knew, and his dwarrows had most likely heard, or understood what such a thing meant. His people had always walked a fine line between love and obsession, the line of Durin more strongly than most. The rumored curse of his blood was not a secret amongst the Seven Kingdoms. It might even have been the true reason the other dwarven-kings had refused their aid—another quest for another mad son of Durin to find his early end.

But she would understand. He hoped she would.

“Well, I can’t say I disagree,” Balin murmured, “especially since she is _still_ our burglar. She should know, especially if you intend to—move things forward.”

Forward. He hadn’t let himself think that far ahead yet. He’d fantasized about all the things he might do to her if she returned his affection, in great and specific detail the likes of which would no doubt turn the rest of his friend’s white hair translucent, but… 

_You called me Bright Eyes_.

He would call her Queen, if she let him.

Bofur’s song ended and the Company gave a smattering of applause. “Not sure how much revelry we’ll be getting into in Mirkwood,” he said with a sad smile, patting his lute affectionately. “Seems like a dismal place.”

“I don’t know,” Bella mused, sitting back in the new dress Glóin had made for her that afternoon—tan linen trimmed in gold and green thread, though where Glóin had found any kind of finery in this hovel, Thorin had no idea. He thanked all his ancestors and Mahal himself that she’d managed to persuade his cousin to keep the style close to her old Shire clothes rather than make her a proper dwarven garment. Thorin would not have been able to control himself if he saw her in the form-fitting silhouette and straight neckline of his people. The bunched skirts, and with them the scant inches of hair at her ankle, were bad enough. “I think I’ll be happy to get back on the road,” she murmured.

He noted the hard quality in her voice, the slight tension at the corner of her mouth. He’d been so focused on thinking her distraction of the past few days was centered on him, he wondered now what could be bothering her. Should he have asked? 

“Really?” Kíli said with an innocent grin, fletching arrows next to his brother. “I’d have thought you might be happy for _rest_ and _relaxation._ ”

Thorin had yet to decide how best to punish his nephew for the rampant glee he seemed to take in sticking his nose into other people’s business—perhaps once their quest was done he would force him to spend a decade with Óin in his apothecary sorting weeds.

“If you’re on about something, you’re doing a marvelous job hiding it, brother,” Fíli said with a smile he hid poorly.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Kíli smiled at Bella, chanced a look at Thorin only to look away at once. A flash of fear showed in his brown eyes, but it was gone just as quickly, replaced by a look of utmost satisfaction. 

Clearly he’d been lax in his place as uncle and sovereign if Kíli wasn’t shaking in his boots at the look Thorin gave him. 

Bella, cunning thing that she was, merely smiled and cocked her head, black eyes shining with anticipation. “You know, Kíli, I’ve been trying to figure out who you remind me of for months, and I think I’ve finally cracked it.”

“Someone handsome and charming, no doubt.”

Beside his brother, Fíli folded his hands behind his head, a knowing smile on his face. At least one of his sister-sons had developed a healthy sense of self-preservation.

“My Aunt Donnamira.”

Dwalin barked a laugh as Kíli’s expression soured.

“No, no,” Bella continued, “you don’t remind me of _her_. She’s a smart, forceful woman, with a sharp mind and a penchant for getting her way. You, my dear, my darling Kíli, couldn’t think your way out of a burlap sack.” Her smile cut the insult as more laughter greeted her, but Thorin saw the coming strike building in her eyes. “No, what I meant was—old Aunt Donnamira raises the loveliest buttersquash in all of Tookland, perhaps in all the Shire. It is so sweet and so hearty, she has people coming from miles around to beg for a taste of her pies and preserves. When she started, of course, it drew all kinds of vermin and tricksters, mice, voles—and one too-clever fox.” 

She puffed thoughtfully on her pipe, eyes glinting with the reflection of the hearth like some ancient bard sharing secrets in a wayward inn. “Now this fox was rather sure of himself, you see, and a bit too bright for his own good, so he would wait until he knew my aunt was otherwise occupied and take large bites out of her prized squash, scampering off before anyone could catch him. He seemed to take a particular pleasure from waiting until my aunt saw the white of his tail before leaping off into the dark trees of Woody End and leaving her beautiful crop spoiled with teethmarks.”

“Let me guess,” Kíli said pleasantly, “she befriended the clever fellow and made him her pet?”

Bella blinked slowly, her grin spreading. “Don’t go getting ahead of me, please. This went on for nigh on three weeks, and no matter how many traps or how many fox-catchers she employed, my aunt could not save her prized buttersquash. Well, let it be said that no Took would give up so easily. One day she determined to sleep in her garden to chase the little villain away for good. But the fox was too-clever, you see, so he waited, and waited, until she was firmly asleep. He even tested her a few times, prodding her with his snout. When she did not wake, he hopped over to his bounty and took one great bite. He chewed and chewed, so distracted by my aunt’s delicious squash that he didn’t see her pebble until it was too late. Hobbit marksmanship being the finest in all Eriador, it hit him square in the center of the eyes. He fell dead right there, face-first into her prized buttersquash with the taste of it still on his lolling tongue. You know what she did then?”

Kíli was frowning in distaste as Fíli tried very hard not to laugh. “Something perfectly respectable, I’m sure.”

“She had him preserved and stuffed, and placed that too-clever fox before her dining room window, so he might watch her eat his beloved squash until she too fell dead.”

The Company burst into hearty laughter as Kíli’s scowl deepened. “Was that supposed to be a lesson?”

Bella shrugged. “Even the cleverest fox should take care when prodding at a Took’s pride.”

Bofur gave an involuntary shudder at her side while Dwalin laughed himself silly at the look on Kíli’s face. “Bella, my friend,” Bofur said with a gentle tap on her knee, “you continue to buck my expectation of hobbitish gentility.”

“We should all fear the gentleness of hobbits,” Thorin said gravely, holding Bella’s smirk as she arched one brow. 

The Company found their way to bed in fits and spurts, not so eager to leave the comfort of Beorn’s house as they had been ready to leave Rivendell. But they were drawing near their destination now. Thorin could feel Erebor beyond the forest and the desolate plains, pulling at him just as it had his whole life. It pulsed and yearned like a second beating in his chest. He was close, closer than he’d ever expected to be, and that atmosphere stirred them one and all.

He was about to rise, catching the look Bella threw at him over her shoulder—he wasn’t sure if it was a summons or a warning, but he planned to find out—when Gandalf slumped next to him in Balin’s empty seat. “A word, Thorin.”

Thorin tried not to grind his teeth as he watched Bella leave with Bofur and Nori, not bothering to hide a grin at his predicament. One day, he would step into one of the wizard’s plans and see how well he liked it. 

“I will remind you not to leave the path when you set out tomorrow. The Mirkwood has grown fangs in recent years, and only the elf-path is safe to travel.”

“You’ve told me this already.”

“And I will tell it to you again before I leave,” Gandalf said with a scowl, turning his sharp gaze on Thorin. “Your prejudice toward the elves cannot blind you, not in the Mirkwood.”

Thorin nodded begrudgingly. “Anything else you’d like to remind me of, Greybeard? Perhaps not to eat any glowing fungus?”

Gandalf’s expression hardened, and a different kind of misgiving entered his eyes. “I must ask a favor of you.”

Thorin saw fear in the old man’s eyes, and tensed. “Then ask it.”

“Keep an eye on Bella for me.”

“Why?”

“Has she not seemed strange to you, these past few days?”

Thorin frowned. She had, but he’d put it down to her discomfort around him. “Perhaps.”

“Perhaps,” he scoffed. “Perhaps your mind has been filled with other matters.”

Thorin’s jaw clenched.

“I know you care for her,” Gandalf’s voice lowered, taking on a gentler tone, “and in this alone, I ask for your assistance. Watch her for me.”

Thorin swallowed his immediate retort that Gandalf had done more than his fair share of _watching_ and less of _helping_ in the last few months. There was concern in the wizard’s voice, concern that went beyond Bella’s welfare. “What’s brought this on?”

Gandalf’s expression smoothed, and he sighed. “I am very fond of Bella, and I worry when I am away from her too long.”

Thorin didn’t press the wizard, nor did he offer any more of an explanation. There was more to it than fondness, he knew, but a part of him didn’t want to ask anything more. It had only been hours ago that she had fallen into his arms, at last, in her own violent, wonderful way. Perhaps he was being craven, but he wouldn’t spoil that so soon with talk of ill moods and a wizard’s meddling.

He sat near the hearth for a time after the rest of his Company had left, staring into the coals, hearing Gandalf’s echo of Balin’s concern over the popping of wood and the sounds of dwarrows sleeping. One high-pitched, lovely snore carried over the rest. 

 

~  ✧ ~

 

Bella stood with Gandalf at the edge of the soft, swaying green field speckled with wildflowers. The faint sound of bees hummed in the distance. By all accounts she should be happy, but at the moment, she was trying not to feel like a petulant child. 

“I will join you again once I see to other matters,” Gandalf murmured, bending low to tweak her nose. “Matters which do not as yet concern you, dear Bella.”

“You haven’t bothered with shielding me from things before,” she muttered, squinting up at the sun and trying not to look the stupid old man in the eye. “If you cared about my welfare, you wouldn’t have pushed me out my smial all those months ago.”

“I nudged you.”

She snorted with a frown. “A wizard’s nudge is fearsome indeed.”

“As is a hobbit’s courage,” he said fondly, kneeling down in front of her and taking her hands in his. “And do not say I have not shielded you from ill tidings before. Unless you claim to read minds as well as commune with the lords of the air, and tame bear-men as easily as you tame kings.” He wore no pack, only his normal grey robes, wrinkled and weathered just the same as if he stood on her doorstep, though he’d seen just as much trouble as the rest of them. He would remain with Beorn while she and the Company continued on into Mirkwood. 

Even as she thought it, a chill rippled down her spine. The shadow of the forest seemed to loom toward her. There was something foul in the boughs of those trees. Gandalf had said as much, and after the dank, stinking goblin caves, she was loathe to place herself into anything resembling darkness again. 

“I would not leave you unless it was urgent,” he murmured.

“If it’s so urgent, why can’t you tell me about it?”

Gandalf sighed, and she knew from his expression before he even opened his mouth that she would get nothing more from him. His mind was full of things not meant for small lives like hers. He was a great wizard, and she nothing more than a stray, wandering hobbit. “Because I don’t rightly know myself, you impossible girl. Why should I give you cause for alarm when it might be an old, tired mind inventing trouble where there is none?” His eyes crinkled fondly. “I know you well, Bella Baggins. You were always prone to flights of fancy.”

“Flights of fancy,” she scoffed, trying for scorn, but finding only a deep, unsettled fear. It had no roots, none that she could see, but she couldn’t shake her unease. Darkness gathered in the forest beside them, a darkness which seemed to hang over her like a heavy cloud. Her shoulder ached something fierce this morning, blasted thing. Perhaps that was the reason for her gloom. “If you forget to collect me in Erebor, I will be very cross. I don’t want to make the whole bloody journey back on my own, thank you.”

He hummed in consideration. “So you will be returning to the Shire?”

She blushed. “I—why wouldn’t I?”

“No reason, no reason,” he mused, grey eyes winking with mischief. “Perhaps I thought your ties to these dwarves might convince you a permanent change of address was in order.”

“Keep your perhapses to yourself, you old windbag.”

He chuckled and brought her in for a hug. He smelled of tobacco and dust, and that indefinable, ancient wind which had always whispered to her of secrets so old no one might understand them anymore. It stirred, not memories of home, but something close—likely the closest feeling she would ever get to ‘home.’

Her eyes pricked slightly, and she screwed up her face. She should be used to his leaving by now. It wasn’t as if he’d ever stuck around for more than a few days before setting off on this mad adventure. Why on earth was she getting worked up over this?

“I shall see you again sooner than you think, Bright Eyes.” He patted her on the head, smiling as she bristled. “Take care not to get lost along the way.”

“I won’t,” she mumbled. “I have an excellent sense of direction.”

“That you do.” He smiled, and with one last cupping of her cheeks in his lined, paper-dry hands, he left her to return to Beorn’s cottage. 

She watched him longer than she should have, fighting the strange certainty that she would never see him again. He was always turning up when he was least wanted or expected. Thinking anything less was beneath her, and his inflated sense of self-importance. Her fingers found their way into her pocket, and she flipped her magic ring over and over, something to distract her from the growing premonition taking root in her mind. 

“Second thoughts?”

She didn’t start, as she’d heard the lumbering dwarf come up behind her. Hard not to hear him with his clanking boots and heavy tread. 

She turned and gave Dwalin a tight, pointed smile. “Not on your life. Who will get you out of trouble when you fall into another trap, my dear Dwalin?”

He grinned, but it didn’t touch his eyes. “Just as long as you’re not jumping in after, burglar.”

Bella rolled her eyes, utterly tired of his poorly veiled concern. Really, she wouldn’t put up with Thorin or Fíli’s worries. She certainly wouldn’t put up with his. “You are not nearly as intimidating as you think you are. You’ve got a bit of jam on your nose, by the way.”

He muttered something under his breath about confusticated halfings, and she made her way to the waiting Company with a brighter, unforced smile. Thorin met her gaze, unfurling within her that giddy warmth which she’d grown rather fond of over the past few days. No, she didn’t have any second thoughts. Not about some things, anyway. 

 

~  ✧ ~

 

Thorin had never liked forests. They were damp, and dark, and tangled with life which skittered at the edges of his sight and hid in shadows. 

But Mirkwood held a different kind of malice in its darkness. All of them had felt it the moment they stepped foot on the winding, leaf-covered path. In the creaking of the trees and the quiet rustle of branches, whispers threaded through the air. Some foul spell lay over these woods, and the farther they traveled, the more Thorin worried that even Mahal’s steady gaze might lose them amongst the shifting dark. It was a crawling, sickly place of tangled and bent trees, made worse by the knowledge that Thranduil, great elven-king of the Woodland Realm, dwelt somewhere inside. 

They pushed forward that first week, rationing their supplies carefully and speaking little. Bofur had been correct in his assumption that revelry would be rare in the forest. Even he was having a hard time keeping his perpetual smile in place. At least he had Nori, as the two had been more obvious in their affection since resting in the skinchanger’s home. It made Thorin smile, when he had the energy, to hear Bofur chattering away while Nori only nodded, his hand held behind his back as Bofur walked close enough to hold it. 

When he had set out from the Blue Mountains, not knowing who might answer his call, he’d never thought to see romance unfold before his eyes. 

Nor had he expected his thoughts to be almost entirely wrapped around the well-being of a hobbit, of all people. In the end, he hadn’t needed Gandalf’s prompting to watch her, to see what he meant. 

Bella, more than any of them, seemed dragged down by the forest. Her eyes were dark and downcast, her jaw clenched. She huddled in on herself, speaking rarely and only when prompted. Her hands were ever at her shoulder or shoved into her pockets, and she ate little. 

All of them seemed to notice her retreat, and it had become habit for each dwarf to pull her back out in his own way. Every night Bofur would ask her to sing, and though she always refused, his needling made her smile. Nori pressed her at riddles while Ori asked her about hobbit customs. Dwalin drilled her when they had energy to train, though Thorin could tell he was going easy on her. Balin entertained her with old stories—many, to Thorin’s embarrassment, were about his less than noble attitudes as a child. Bombur gave her first helpings at dinner. Bifur smiled and Dori fussed, Óin swept in whenever an errant branch gave her a scratch and Glóin set about mending her mother’s old traveling coat with a deft, careful hand. Kíli made jokes while Fíli remained a constant, stoic presence at her side. 

Thorin, for his part, could do little. But she seemed not to mind that his tongue tied itself into knots when he saw her fatigue, or that he hovered at a close distance, never wanting to let her out of his sight. Because inevitably, whenever they stopped for camp or pressed on into the darkness, she found him. Whenever he turned to check on his Company, she was there, walking behind him with hard, distant eyes. Around their meager fire, she sat next to him, huddling closer as the nights grew colder and autumn grew bold. 

They circled one another, always coming back to the other like magnetic stones gliding back to a central point. He might have reveled in the ease of it, the sheer pull of them both, if he hadn’t been so worried. About her, about the forest, about the damn elven-king hiding behind his gloaming trees. 

It made a sick, ironic sense that he would finally find his way to her in the middle of the least romantic place in Middle-earth. 

On their ninth day in the Mirkwood, they came to a fork in the path. Over the grumblings of his Company, Thorin called, “Let’s rest for lunch. We can scout ahead after we eat something.”

Rations were holding out, but their meals were meager things of soggy oats and nuts. They had root vegetables for their evening meals, but Beorn had balked at their request for meat. They dare not scavenge in the forest for food, and what little game they passed in the woods looked thin and sickly, and leapt away from them with a fell speed. All of them, even Bombur, agreed that it was best not to risk hunting. 

They divided up their meal, and he found himself carrying a bowl to Bella where she sat staring at the fork in the path with a hard frown. 

Thorin sat next to her, his chest warming as she shifted and pressed back against him at once, as if without thought. He knew it was because she was cold—he’d tried a few times to simply give her his coat, unsuccessfully—but he couldn’t complain much if it meant he could touch her, even if it was in an innocent, and not exactly alluring, way. They ate in silence for a time, as they often did, listening to the muted conversation of the Company behind them.

“I thought there was only one path,” Bella muttered.

“So did I. It’s been nearly fifty years since Balin traveled here, and he never took the elf-path. Perhaps Gandalf was wrong.” He frowned. “I wouldn’t put it past the light-footed wraiths to obfuscate the way to lure travelers to their doom.”

Bella snorted and set her empty bowl down. “Yes, I forgot for one moment that you hated elves. Thank you for reminding me.”

Thorin watched her eyes flash with mirth and relaxed. “We cannot all have the magnanimous heart of a hobbit.”

She flicked his hand, but didn’t pull away as he caught it and threaded their fingers together. “One of these days,” she murmured, her voice going sweet and smooth, “I’m going to get cross at all your teasing.”

He hummed in consideration. “I don’t think so. You’ve softened considerably since we met.”

“Softened,” she muttered, scowling. “Please.”

“You see?” He chuckled. “A month ago I would have gotten a jab in the liver for such a remark.”

“Maybe I’m softening _you_ up and I shall strike when you least suspect it.” She sighed, let her head fall against his shoulder. He went still, his mind bending to the touch of her slight weight against him, the gentle relaxing of her fingers around his. 

It was precious, this unraveling between them, and he hated that it came in this mire of a place. 

“Go on, then. Ask me what’s wrong. I know you want to.”

“Is it the forest?”

She nodded, her hair brushing his cheek, still smelling of flowers and fresh air, even in the depths of this knotted mire. “There’s something in here, something sick. Nothing in this place is right, and I…I feel like I’m being watched.”

“Well, you are,” he reasoned, though his mind filled with unease. “I’m not the only one who has noticed you are less lively than usual.”

She chuckled, though it lacked the vigor he’d come to relish. “I’m fine. I just want to get out of here so I can see the sky again.”

“Bella,” he murmured, not know if it was a warning or a plea.

“I’ll be fine,” she insisted.

“You don’t have to lie to me.”

She straightened, looked him in the eyes. “I’m not lying, you—” Her hard expression flagged after a moment, as if she didn’t have the energy to keep it up. “I’m not, really. It’s just… My shoulder hurts. I don’t know what it is, but I feel like the forest is making it worse.”

Thorin nodded, eyes drawn down to her hands. One still sat between his, while the other had balled up in her pocket, no doubt clenched against the pain. “Have you spoken to Óin?”

“I don’t think this is something Óin can fix.” She smiled and cocked her head, a bit of brightness coming back to her eyes. “How sweet of you to worry, though.”

“You say that like you’re surprised.”

Her smile softened and her thumb swiped a line across his wrist. “Not for the reason you think.”

Though they’d been spending time together, neither of them had tried for another kiss. The forest and its darkness, compounded by their companions’ pointed stares, did not make for a romantic mood. And despite the light in her eyes as she looked at him, the obvious affection shining through her expression, he still wondered if she cared for him in the same way, if her feelings matched the intensity of his. 

The unspoken conversation still hung between them, untouched, growing dust while they moved around it. 

Once they were out of this forest, with Erebor standing in the near distance, they would talk of happier things. Or he hoped they would be happier. With all his newly awakened heart, he hoped.

“We should keep going,” he said, reluctantly, stopping himself from tucking her hair back behind one pointed ear. 

A few of his dwarrows had noticed him do the same on the Carrock, and while propriety was held in low regard out here in the wilds, there were some things which would always mean the same, no matter the situation. Hair of any kind was not to be played with idly, though he was starting to think Bella didn’t hold to the same customs. She certainly let her hair fall free without any reservations—something any dwarf in polite society would take as wanton behavior—and had even asked a few of the Company to help her braid it. To his knowledge, all of them had refused, but no one seemed willing to tell her what it meant to touch another’s hair, the implication and intent. Hair was meant for family’s hand, and no dwarf would think to offer help without the following declaration of affection, and intention.

She grimaced and stood, stretching out her limbs and scowling up at the trees. “Right. We need to figure out which path to take, and I need to see the sun or I’ll start shrieking. I think I might be able to climb up and into the canopy.”

“What do you mean?”

She pointed up with a wry smile. “Presumably, we take the path which leads toward the Lonely Mountain.”

The canopy was nearly fifty feet up, so thick only sparse shafts of light reached the ground. Though he was not afraid of heights, his stomach lurched at the thought. “You want to climb the trees.”

Bella rolled her eyes and bent, gathering up her skirts and tying them between her legs. “Unless you’d like to guess and hope for the best?”

Thorin swallowed the urge to tell her, in no uncertain terms, that she would _not_ be climbing into the trees of a cursed forest where she would undoubtedly fall and break her neck. He was being over-cautious. She was a brilliant climber, and beyond their first encounter, she had proven herself masterful at scaling any kind of tree. 

He let his mind follow the motion of her hands to distract him, the hint of her small body showing as she pulled her skirts tight. As her lower legs showed in the dim light, he found the sight of her thick, golden-brown hair entirely lovely. Hobbits really were the strangest creatures, to sprout hair from everywhere else except their chins. Though it might be improper, it was a sight better than thinking of her falling to her death.

“What are you doing to your dress?” Kíli called, leaning around Bombur to stare at Bella’s legs. 

Thorin shot him a dark look, which he returned with a pleasant smile.

“You try climbing with skirts, Kíli,” Bella said sourly.

Dwalin looked up from scraping their pot of any remnants of pooridge. “Never done that before when you jimmied up trees.”

She straightened, rolled her shoulders back, and fixed them all with an imperious look. A hint of fire flashed in her expression as she arched one brow. “Because I normally don’t need to. I’ve been climbing trees in dresses since I was a toddler and no self-respecting hobbit would let anything so silly as skirts get in the way of picking apples. But,” she sighed, “I know any little bit might make you nervous dwarves feel better, and so I am being _cautious._ ” 

“How generous of you,” Thorin murmured, unable to stop a slight twinge of panic when she pulled herself up onto a lower branch with ease. 

She paused and winked at him, in a show he might have found suggestive if he wasn’t currently trying hard not to picture her broken on the ground with blood pouring from her ears. “I’ll let you know if I find an apple. I _might_ even share.”

He watched her go with a pained smile, tracking her every graceful movement as she flipped up and into the tree canopy like a small, flitting squirrel. He filed the thought away for another time, knowing that her current mood might not allow for such a well-meant comparison. 

“On your feet, then,” he called, gathering up his things and keeping one eye on the rustling trees above, though he could no longer see her, only the trail of her movement. 

“That is unnatural,” Bofur said, frowning up with Thorin at the trees. “She lived in a hole in the ground, for Mahal’s sake. Shouldn’t she be afraid of being so high up?”

Thorin snorted. “You should tell her that when she comes back down.”

“No-o, thank you. I fancy my family jewels intact.”

He clapped Bofur on the shoulder. “I knew there was a reason I asked you to join, Bofur. Your marvelous cunning.”

He tipped his hat. “And my pretty face, of course.”

Thorin chuckled and swept his gaze across the group, wanting to leave as soon as Bella came down with their heading. He froze, counted his Company again. “Where’s Bombur?” He had been standing next to Kíli only moments before, but now he was nowhere to be found. 

“He left to relieve himself,” Dori frowned over his shoulder, “a while ago, now that I think on it.”

“And Óin?”

Glóin sighed and shouted. “Óin, where are you, you dumb—” 

He didn’t finish before a shadow dropped onto him from the trees above—a shadow with many limbs and even more yellow, beady eyes. Thorin moved to unsheathe his sword, opened his mouth to call out, when something pierced his arm, and the world dimmed. He had the impression of falling back on something bulbous and sticky before hitting the ground. His eyes rolled back into his head, and his last thought was of Bella high up in the trees, alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the sporadic updates, guys! I've been dealing with holiday and family craziness, but good news: I figured out the root of my health stuff, so hopefully I'll be able to get that sorted in the new year. Tentatively, that means more regular updates. 
> 
> If I don't post again before Christmas, I hope you all have a lovely time! And if you don't celebrate, then I wish you simply good non-demoninational cheer and a Happy New Year <3 And if you're a grinch like me, I am sending you patience. It's almost over. I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH.


	23. The Wind Keeps Pushing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Shake" by The Head and the Heart](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkQn5rF12RY&index=23&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-)

Bella pulled herself up the last bit of branch and as her head broke through the forest canopy, she nearly cried out in relief. Sun, glorious, wonderful, _sun_ touched her face. Warmth trickled down into her body again and the thudding pain her shoulder eased to a distant throb. 

For the last nine days, she’d been cold and tired and miserable, hurting all the time and wondering if this forest were not a forest at all but a specific kind of hell crafted specifically to make her feel like a broken worm. 

Fresh air brushed through her hair and she saw birds flying up across the tops of the trees. From above, they took on a new beauty—brushed with light and rustling slightly in the breeze. The sky was tinted pink and orange. Even the clouds looked soft and lovely in the illumination of the setting sun. The light filtered through her and made her feel like herself again. 

This was the real reason she’d climbed up. Finding the right path was merely an excuse. A week without sun and air had started to pull at her sanity. The only reason she hadn’t devolved entirely into an ill temper was…well, Thorin. 

There was something safe about being next to him, something that made the pain in her shoulder grow manageable. Even if she was angry or irritated—because even in this happy little dream-state they currently inhabited, he still managed to shove her tactlessly into rage from time to time—he always made her _feel_ , bright and hot and immediate, rather than the sinking dread of emptiness, or the itching paranoia in the back of her mind.

If she were being honest with herself, he’d always had that ability. Even in the beginning, he had stirred something in her—anger, spite, outrage, and then later, humor, desire, hope. He couldn’t help but encourage others to feel, simply through the force of his presence. He was steady and solid, and something she could hold onto when she started tipping back into her mind. She wouldn’t have been able to get through her days in Mirkwood without him. 

She sighed, watched a butterfly lazily pass her, and readied herself again for the cold dark of the forest. _One foot in front of the other_ , she repeated to herself, as she had been repeating day after day. Obstinance would only get her so far. “Courage, Bright Eyes,” she murmured, a little thrill of warmth as she heard the echo of Thorin’s voice in her mind. 

For some reason, the nickname took on a different meaning from him. She found she quite liked it.

She sucked in as much of the light she could, trying to take it with her into the depths of the forest below. Dropping back down into the dark, she fought the initial shiver of dread. “It’s the left one,” she called down before she could forget.

She made her way quickly, not wanting to linger in the gnarled branches too long—who knew what nasty beasts called this forest home. She was halfway to the ground when she realized no one had answered her. Listening for the sounds of her dwarves, she stopped, one hand clutching a branch while one of her feet dangled in midair. “Thorin, did you hear me?”

Nothing. 

“Fíli? Bofur? Are you lot having a laugh?” Her heart raced, and for the first time in weeks, she felt the sharp bite of fear in her chest. 

But fear was better than nothing. 

Bella slipped the rest of the way down to the ground, going much faster than she normally would have, if thirteen dwarves had been watching her in disapproval. Their camp was deserted, a few bags scattered in the center of the road, the detritus of some broken bowls. She had to force down a cry of dismay when she saw an axe buried into a tree and recognized it immediately as belonging to Dwalin. Keeper, she saw by the rune carved into its hilt. She could only read it because of Dwalin’s explanation of their names, pointing out the different runes on both of his axes to read Grasper and Keeper—“One to grasp your soul, and one to keep it,” he’d explained after one exhausting practice when she’d asked him why he had two axes instead of one bigger one like Glóin.

Looking around, she saw one of Fíli’s long knives and a few of Kíli’s arrows, scattered pebbles from Ori’s slingshot. 

A branch snapped in the distance, and she tensed, one hand sliding to her sword and the other digging into her pocket. She had her ring, if she could just follow the trail.

Something stayed her hand, feeling almost like dread, as her fingers curled around the smooth ring. “You’d think I would be used to this by now,” she murmured, swallowing down her panic and squaring her shoulders.

She slipped the ring on and felt a sense of quiet pass over her. The ring tightened slightly over her finger, and this time she could tell the difference. 

The edges of the world seemed slightly blurred—not enough to be noticeable at first. But after a time, it lent her movements a strange echo, as if she were moving faster than everything else. The pain in her shoulder was relegated to a different part of her mind, separate, as was the cold. They were still present, just removed, as if she had stepped into another frame of being with the ring. It made sense, in a way. She had no idea how magic rings worked, but she was invisible, so it followed that other things would fade with her body. 

She made a mental note of the camp’s location—she wouldn’t be able to carry Fíli’s knife and Dwalin’s axe at the same time without risking stabbing herself in the foot, and Old Took take her if she left one of them behind—and set off in pursuit of the small noises rustling in the trees ahead. 

The whole forest was quiet, pressing down on her with malice. Twice she felt something watching her behind her back and turned, only to find the forest empty, a slightly creaking branch the only sign of any movement. 

After a few minutes, she heard a deep, low growl, and her heart leapt. Dwalin. She picked as quietly as she could through the gnarled roots and choking moss, until she nearly tripped over the unconscious form of Bifur. She knelt and checked his pulse, heart leaping into her throat. Still alive. 

Her hand clenched over her sword, and she straightened, ready to kill whatever fell creature had dragged off her friends, only to freeze as a huge spider crawled toward her out of the gloom. It was bulbous and slimy, the color of black bogeys and turned milk. A rank smell wafted toward her as it came closer, and she nearly gagged. What seemed like hundreds of beady yellow eyes winked and spun in a face covered in wiry grey hair. It was a creature out of nightmares.

That, perhaps, was why she felt no fear of it. Nightmares were meant to be slain by heroes with shining swords and magic rings. 

She moved fast, stabbing her sword into the spider’s face. It gave out a loud, pitiful squeak, and then slumped to the ground with its many legs twitching, rolling off Bifur before it could pull him more than a few feet. 

Her heart raced as she waited for some sign that more were coming. Bifur groaned, and she patted him gently on the chest. “Time to wake up, Bifur dear,” she muttered, and stepped over him. 

No less than twenty spiders, some twice the size of Bombur, were crawling over a small clearing in the trees, busily spinning webs around her dwarves. A few were lifting them into the trees, hoisted up on massive networks of cloudy white webbing. 

_Oh no,_ she thought, grip going clammy over her sword. She would never be able to fight off this many, not even while invisible. Not unless she suddenly developed years worth of training in the span of a few moments. If she could get Dwalin or Thorin out, or Fíli…

Something prickled at her mind, and she clapped a hand over her mouth as she heard a creaking, shriveled voice say, _“They’re coming, they’re coming. Get the nasty dwarves into the trees before the elves come. Faster, faster!”_

_“Heavy,”_ another added, though she couldn’t tell where the voice came from.

_“All the better to eat.”_

The spiders were talking to each other. She shouldn’t have been surprised, really. Not after everything she’d seen and done the past few months. The beasts seemed to be preserving her dwarves, setting them aside for later. Her stomach roiled at the thought of any kind of storage these foul things had come up with to keep their food good.

She focused on the only point she might be able to use. They were worried about elves coming to stop them. Gandalf had told her little of the elves that called this foul wood home, but surely, elves of any kind would be worthy allies. It might be her only chance. 

She stumbled away from the spiders, hoping they didn’t have time to take her dwarves too far into the trees, and followed their whisperings. If the spiders were worried, the elves must be close. Stumbling forward for what felt like hours, but was probably only a few minutes, she caught a flash of red streaking through the trees in a patch of errant sun. Sure enough, a group of elves was moving on silent feet through the forest. They followed no path, though they seemed to know where they were going. 

Bella lurched forward, dropping her voice into what she hoped was a good imitation of a dwarf, and shouted, “Blasted spiders! Mahal damn you!” For good measure, she whacked her sword at the nearest tree and added some squealing to strengthen her ruse.

Turning and sprinting back to the dwarves as soon as the elves tracked the source of her voice, she began to slice into each spider she passed. It was nasty work, their stomachs opening up and spilling milky fluid onto the ground and trees. Some of the foul stuff got caught in her hair and clothes, and soon she might as well have been cocooned herself. They shrieked and skittered, their voices grating like needles against her mind. She blocked them out, though they shouted obscenities and panic at and around her.

As she fought, continuing to shout and bellow in an attempt to draw the elves, some of the dwarves began to rouse. Dwalin first, still holding one axe in his partially covered hand, then Bofur, Glóin, followed by Dori and the young princes. Just as Kíli blinked his eyes open, the elves broke into the clearing. 

Chaos fell as she tried to dodge dwarf and elf alike, climbing into the trees to recover the last few dwarves. She cut Balin free, trying her best to direct his fall to a softer pile of fallen leaves. Ori was already wriggling when she tore open his cocoon. “Hold still,” she whispered, not wanting to slice his belly on accident. 

“Bella?” he groaned blearily, but didn’t get another chance as he fell promptly onto Nori’s sluggish head. 

_Thorin_ , she thought in panic, looking up into the trees, trying to find any more of the unopened cocoons as the elves dispatched the last of the spiders. She heard the Company growling and shouting, refusing any help from the elves, the idiots, when she heard a branch break over her head, and saw Thorin’s very distinctive bulk tip toward her. 

She jerked back with a yelp, but found herself tumbling down onto the forest floor with a semi-conscious dwarvenking half-stuck to her side with all his sticky webbing. 

They landed in a heap together, Bella ending up pinned to the ground with him nearly on top of her. Dimly, she registered that it was just her luck that the first time she managed to get him on top of her she was covered in spider goo and he was mostly unconscious. She scrambled out from under him, as anyone who saw them now would see only Thorin with his head hovering a few inches off the ground and not, to her amusement, resting firmly between her breasts. 

Thorin grunted and rolled onto the ground as an elf with sleek, white-blonde hair and dark eyes walked over to them. Bella slid back as silently as she could, not daring to breath as the elf stopped only a few feet away.

He knelt beside Thorin and frowned, one hand on the elegant knife at his waist. “Well, this proving to be an eventful day,” he mused, studying Thorin’s face as he came to. 

“What’s—” Thorin broke off and lunged. _“You.”_

Bella watched in alarm as the elf stepped back with a bored expression, dodging Thorin’s sluggish attack easily. “Save your anger for my father, your majesty,” he said calmly. “No doubt he will be just as pleased to see you, knowing you’ve trespassed in his realm.”

Bella got to her feet slowly as the elf shoved Thorin, stumbling, but growing more and more aware by the second, back to the Company. The dwarves were divested of their weapons, the process going about as smoothly as she might have expected. Nori and Dwalin came out the other end of the discussion with bloody noses, while Fíli took three times as long as anyone else. The elves nearly stripped him naked to find all his hidden knives. 

He glowered at the elf who found the thin blade tucked into the lining of his coat, a woman with ridiculously long red hair and green eyes. 

“You can search me next,” Kíli said at his side, giving the elf a hard, suggestive smile. “I’d suggest trousers first.”

The elf looked him over and arched one eyebrow. “I could,” she mused, her voice high and musical, “but I think I’d be disappointed in how little I’d find.”

Bella grinned slowly as Kíli’s expression flagged. Even in the midst of such tension, she could take pleasure in that boy being knocked down a peg. 

The red-haired elf flipped Fíli’s knife once over her fingers in a quick, skilled motion and moved to the blonde elf, who was watching Thorin closely, his cold blue eyes calculating. They spoke in hushed voices for a time in their fluid language, no doubt debating what to do with thirteen angry dwarves. Bella picked up some of it, but most sounded slightly off, as if it was a dialect of elvish she’d never heard before.

“Is there a reason you’ve stolen our property?” Balin asked as diplomatically as he could while still sounding thoroughly furious. 

“You trespass in the realm of the Woodland King,” the blonde elf said. “We are simply taking precautions, dwarf.”

“These woods do not belong to that snake,” Thorin snarled, looking so angry Bella wondered what on earth this elf had done to him. She’d seen him angry before, but this went deeper than even she understood. “He cannot claim ownership over the trees, or does he think the leaves belong to him as well?”

“The path does,” the elf said, his eyes narrowing in anger. 

The red-haired elf murmured something in elvish, which the blonde one seemed to accept, reluctantly. “We are honor bound to escort you to safety in my father’s halls.”

Bella sighed in relief where she hid behind a tree some distance from the group. If they could just get through the forest in one piece—

Thorin spat on the ground and growled, “I would no sooner treat with that craven than eat dirt.”

Bella had half a mind to stalk over and smack him across the head for being so stupidly pig-headed. 

“Perhaps you should start now, then,” the blonde elf said with a cruel smile, “and ready yourself for the challenge.”

Even in her frustration at Thorin’s inability to swallow his pride, she tensed at the insult. Anger surged into her throat as the other dwarves reacted in kind. Dwalin had to be forcibly restrained by no less than three elves to keep him from launching at their leader, this sneering prince. 

“Now is not the time,” the red-haired elf warned, her voice soft but commanding. “You can trade barbs with our guest when we are clear from the spiders. More will come, and come soon. You know this, _gwador_. We need to be far from here.”

Bella perked up, recognizing that as the elvish word for brother. So these two were close, though not related by blood. Or she guessed not. They certainly looked nothing alike. 

The blonde elf met the redhead’s gaze, nodded at once, and stepped back. Whoever the redhead was, she clearly had some sense. “If you try to injure any of my party,” the elf-prince said coldly, “you forfeit all rights to our protection. I leave the rest to the Woodland King.”

Bella tried to get close enough to one of the dwarves to whisper in his ear, but all of them were surrounded by elves. She saw them glancing about in concern, saw the tension and panic in Thorin’s face as he followed behind the blonde elf. 

There was no use for it. She’d have to wait until they camped for the night. Sprinting ahead, she managed to retrieve Fíli’s knife and Dwalin’s axe before the elves reached their camp. She hoped the magic of the ring extended to a few weapons as she stashed the knife into the holster on her leg, though it was much longer than the one currently sitting in her pocket, and held Dwalin’s axe. It was far heavier than it looked, though she managed. She could slip it into the pile with the rest of their weapons later.

She had a close call once, catching her toes on a root and drawing the red-haired elf’s gaze with her muffled curse. Those green eyes narrowed somewhere over her head, but she moved on, and Bella went far more carefully after that. 

Following as close as she dared, she picked after the elves as they led her Company on and hoping she’d done right in calling the elves’ attention. 

Staring at the back of Thorin’s head as they continued into the gloom of Mirkwood with their elvish guides, she scowled. _Though I’m sure I’ll get an earful either way_.

 

~  ✧ ~

 

Thorin spent four days in a state of dread without any sign of Bella. He clung to the hope that she was following, that she had evaded the spiders, somehow, and was hiding from the elves. It wasn’t entirely impossible—she’d navigated the goblin tunnels on her own. 

But goblins were stupid. Elves, for all their many faults, were not. Barring attacking his captors and risking the lives of his Company, however, he could do nothing. They were outnumbered two-to-one, disarmed, and on unfamiliar ground. It would be suicide to even try. 

“We have to tell them, uncle,” Fíli had whispered to him once, after the first night with no sign of her. The Company kept looking at Bofur, who had first heard her in Goblin Town, in increased agitation as if he might be able to produce her from thin air. “They might be able to find her.”

Dwalin cursed where he sat on Fíli’s other side. “And rope her into this mess as well?”

“Better that than leave her alone in the forest,” Kíli said darkly, his eyes ever on their elvish guards. “They might not wish us harm. We still don’t know _what_ they want from us.”

“Yes,” Thorin muttered, glaring at the blonde elf who looked so similar to his father, “we do.”

Thranduil would want to toy with him, to humble him, and then demand his ransom in star-gems. 

Thorin had heard his grandfather speak of the gems coveted by the elvenking, had wondered how anyone could turn their back on an entire people fleeing for their lives, all for the slight of being denied a handful of gems. And people spoke of the greed of dwarrows. 

The elvenking had lured them into his web and would soon make his demands. The question occupying Thorin’s mind, as he waited for some sign of Bella, was how low he would need to stoop to buy his Company’s freedom. Because he would, in the end. Erebor was too important to lose, though he would hate every second of staring into the face of that sneering, immortal traitor. The same face who had turned away from the burning wreckage of his home without concern for the dwarrows dying all around him.

On the fourth day, they stopped by a dark, ink-black river. None of the elves looked in need of rest, and he had a sneaking suspicion the little elvish prince was playing some joke on them, though he couldn’t deny Bombur and Ori’s general state of fatigue. The youngling looked as if he were constantly on the verge of tears.

Thorin was watching Dwalin closely, ready to pull him back if he tried to kick one of the elves into the water, when he caught a flash of yellow in the corner of his eye. Next to the riverbank sat a bundle of yellow flowers, their thick stems braided together in a simple, familiar pattern. They rested perfectly against a stone, settled up straight, staring at him like the embodiment of a wink. 

He moved without thought, picking them up and staring around the river, behind him, searching for some sign of Bella hiding behind a tree. His heart settled for the first time in four days. _My clever, cunning burglar…_

“What’s wrong?” Dwalin muttered, staring murderously at an elf who’d taken a liking to one of his axes and was tossing it ostentatiously into the air with a lazy smile. 

Thorin handed him the flowers without a word, pulling his eyes back from the trees so as not to draw any suspicion. 

Dwalin swore under his breath. “Mahal’s sodden beard, how the _hell_ did she find us?”

Thorin shook his head, unable to keep a small smile from his lips. 

Kíli caught sight of the flowers in Dwalin’s hand and let out a sharp laugh, snatching them up and grinning at the other dwarrows. The realization spread through the Company, most unable to keep their reactions subtle enough to escape the notice of the elves. 

The red-headed one, whom he had surmised was some kind of captain with authority over the rest, stepped up to Kíli with a strange look in her eye. “Do dwarves enjoy weaving flowers?”

Without a beat, Kíli offered it to her with a roguish smile. “For a bonny elvish lass, I’ll enjoy a lot of things.”

Thorin scowled, knowing that wherever Bella was, she’d probably not enjoy her message being used as a joke by Kíli. Also the idea of any of these reedy waifs being called “bonny” turned his stomach. They looked more like bleached and skinned trees.

“Where did you get those?” the princeling asked, his eyes hard as he stared at Kíli. 

Thorin said sharply, “There was a patch on the road not a hundred yards back. Or did your keen eyes miss them?”

He looked between them dismissively. “Such a gentle heart for a son of Durin. Your line is usually prone to boorish stupidity.”

Thorin braced a hand against Fíli’s chest as he surged forward, trusting Dwalin to hold Kíli back, though his nephew simply arched an eyebrow. “And I’m surprised a son of Thranduil can bear to look away from his reflection long enough to leave the safety of his halls.”

The princeling’s eyes flashed in anger and Thorin readied to lunge in front of his nephew, but a high, gentle laugh broke the tension.

The captain smiled widely, or widely for an elf, which was more of a sideways slant than a true smile, and plucked the flowers from Kíli’s fingers. “That was almost funny.” She looked around at her prince expectantly as she slid them into her belt. “Are we done, your highness? I’d like to return you to your father soon. You know how cross he can get.”

The elf-prince frowned, but nodded, passing by Thorin with a cold smile. 

“ _Inbul-hibir fundhamâd-ublag,_ ” Dwalin muttered under his breath as the elves herded them back into formation. 

Thorin eyed the captain as she exchanged a few words with Kíli. To his immense displeasure, something winked in his nephew’s eyes as the elf turned away. Something which made dread sink through his stomach. Even worse, that not-smile still pulled at the captain’s lips. 

The captain caught his gaze and her expression smoothed, replaced by an intent, pointed look which set his teeth on edge. He’d heard of the power of some elves to read minds, to plant mad thoughts into the hearts of honest men. He did his best not to look around as they continued, and instead bent his mind to seeing signs of Bella. 

How she was following in secret, with elves whose senses had picked out hares and deer from hundreds of yards away in a near silent forest, he didn’t know. He just hoped they would both live long enough for him to ask her. 

 

~  ✧ ~

 

Bella spent a week trailing the elves and her Company. She spent a week hiding in plain sight, with the ring on at all times, a week stealing what food she could and keeping silent and still. She dare not sleep more than a few hours, for fear of losing them and stumbling alone through the wood. The delirium of fatigue was beginning to affect her. Often at night, she would hear voices in the darkness, see dancing lights beyond the shadows and smell rich, lovely food. She almost got up and followed a few times, her stomach so empty and her mind so stretched to its end that she nearly forgot Gandalf’s warning—to never leave the path, and trust not her senses if the wood tempted her with comfort. There was no comfort to be found in Mirkwood. She’d thought he was exaggerating, but she knew the truth of his words now. 

This place was hell, as much as any place could be—a twisted, miasmic hell so far from what a forest should have been that it made her soul feel weary just to walk through its shadows. She was starting to believe in Thorin’s ideas of an afterlife for such a place to exist, though not even her cousin Lobelia deserved this kind of torment. If there was a place made solely to provide eternal torment, it was the Mirkwood.

If she could only _talk_ to someone, she might be able to relax. As it was, she’d started having long conversations in her mind, talking to herself as if she were two people simply to keep herself from shrieking aloud to break the silence. 

Her only comfort was the ring and the security it gave her. If she had needed to rely on her stealth alone, she would have been seen long ago. Her reflexes had grown sluggish and her awareness dim. She knew she was cold, for her fingers trembled and her chest was hollow with a biting lack that only a chill could conjure, but she didn’t feel it. 

_More of the ring’s magic,_ she told herself as she followed doggedly behind the elves, keeping her eyes peeled to the last—the red-head’s swaying hair. _Too much hair._ She nodded in agreement with the thought. _And I thought mine was getting out of control._

She idly wove another little bouquet of flowers, this one made of kingsfoil and forget-me-nots a shade of blue so vibrant it seemed to glow in her fogged mind. Leaving the bouquets had become her mission, something to keep her hands busy and her mind on something other than the concerns of her body. 

And she liked to watch Thorin find them before the others. Fíli had been close a few times, but Thorin seemed to be waiting, always, for her next sign. His eyes passed over her sometimes as he searched the trees, a flicker of heat rising in her chest each time. She’d been close to letting him see her once or twice, but every time she thought about taking off the ring, something in her shied away. Not until she was safe and she could help them get out of this situation—which was, technically, her fault. _Better than being eaten by spiders_ , she thought, scowling. 

_One more week_ , she told herself, mesmerized by the red hair swaying in front of her, like a sifting curtain of autumn leaves. Mirkwood would have taken them three weeks to traverse on their own, and the Woodland King’s home stood close to the eastern edge of the forest. _One more week, and then you’ll see the sun._

So focused was she on her mantra that she nearly ran into the back red-head’s thigh. The entire group had turned abruptly onto a wider, more well-kept path, lined with a subtle demarcation of twisting ivy and autumn berries. Bella’s heart leapt into her throat as the elf turned around, her green eyes sharp and cutting as they flicked from side to side. 

_This one’s smarter than the rest, isn’t she?_ Bella frowned as she tucked her bouquet into her pocket and refocused as best she could. 

As they went, the forest seemed to soften and shift. The color bled from dark, malevolent purples and blues to more natural reds and gold. The trees straightened and the sounds of animalscame to her over the rushing of water and the rustling of leaves. The forest changed from one of her nightmares to one almost like the woods on the border of Green Hill Country—shafts of yellow and silver light spearing through trees marked with deep reddish wood and wide green leaves. It was taller, and older, and just a hair stranger, than the woods she’d walked with her mother once upon a time, but it was every bit as lovely. Bella felt the weight slip off her shoulders. Whatever curse lay over the forest beyond the elvish kingdom, its power waned the farther they went. 

When Bella stepped into her first patch of sun, she almost sank to her knees in happiness. She was still dead-tired, and could feel her body stretching to the limits of its strength, but her soul no longer felt heavy and cold. 

She hurried quicker now, wondering if she might be able to slip up to Thorin at the head of the line. The dwarves, she grinned to see, seemed entirely unaffected by the change in the forest, and were still grumbling and scowling, looking ready to murder the nearest branch if it so much as brushed their heads. _Stubborn dunderheads._ They could look upon the finest palace in the world, and if an elf had sneezed in it once three centuries earlier, they would call it drafty. 

It only took a few hours for them to reach where she thought they were headed. The entrance to what must have been the Woodland Realm rose over the forest. Twining wooden beams outlined a wrought-copper gate which might have been actual vines for all their natural grace. Golden berries and amber flowers lined the bars. Bella followed the elves inside, holding her breath against some magic which might negate the kind within her ring. She’d heard of such safeguards in her books—thieves and intruders outwitted by wards, and the Woodland King had a reputation for being paranoid—but her worry was for naught. Either the magic keeping this place protected from the corruption of the rest of the forest was for that purpose alone, or her ring was too powerful. 

She grinned to herself as she skipped forward, marveling at the beauty of the kingdom. It reminded her somewhat of Rivendell, with its curling architecture and symmetry, but there was a lack of peace in the redwood trees and the leaf-covered arches. The gnarled oaks and evergreens seemed to bristle and sway, as if they had a life of their own. Elves moved with purpose along the streets around them, not in flowing robes of dawn-colored silk, but in leather and green-tinted silver. Every one seemed to carry a knife or a bow, and their raiment seemed crafted for purpose rather than effect. There was no ease to their step, no ancient serenity to their expressions. They were focused, and the city reflected their vigilance. 

Once inside what she assumed was the king’s home—a large, airy cavern system which stretched over her head with wood and stone woven together in carved beams, she set her mind to mapping their path. If this meeting with the elvenking went sour, which it would, unless Thorin had developed tact in the week since they’d last spoken, she would need to find them a way out again. 

The group stopped at the end of a long road winding down to a set of huge wooden doors, carved in intricate seasonal motifs of animals and plants. The elf-prince said something to the rest of his party, his expression going tight as he surveyed Thorin. “My father wishes to speak with you alone.”

Thorin’s jaw clenched. “Do I look like I care for the wishes of Thranduil Oathbreaker?”

_Confusticated dwarf_ , Bella thought, walking toward him, taking care to keep clear of the elves. 

The elf-prince sighed, just as bored with his obstinance as Bella. “It matters not, as you are currently breathing on the goodwill of my captain. Your companions will remain here.”

The Company rioted at once, but Thorin silenced them with a look. Bella was close enough to see his eyes sweep the path they had traveled, presumably looking for some sign of her. Her heart swelled with affection as she watched him, and saw the concern reflected in the other dwarves’ eyes. As the captain stepped out of the group and motioned to Thorin to follow, she took advantage of the chaos to slip her half-braided bouquet of kingsfoil into Fíli’s pocket. 

It took a few moments, as Bella followed Thorin, the elf-prince, and the red-headed captain away from the rest of the group, for Fíli to notice her gift. She grinned at the shout of surprise, watched him spin around with wide eyes and a furrowed brow.

“Your nephews are nervous children, your majesty,” the elf-prince mused as they walked.

“Perhaps they feel ill at ease in the home of the elf who abandoned their people to a dragon’s tender mercies.”

Bella’s stomach flipped. Was that why Thorin hated their kind so much?

The elf-prince looked mildly uncomfortable, though Bella saw the captain’s eyes soften in guilt and sympathy. 

Quickly, the cavern entrance grew into to a fine, sprawling room, larger and grander than any Bella had ever step foot in before. Even the thain’s hall, the grandest of all hobbit dwellings, would have been put to shame in such a place. The ceiling towered over her head with red and gold beams of copper and bronze. Reflecting pools of clear blue water sat on either side of a walkway leading up to a platform rising from the ground on twisted ivy. The throne at its center was a threatening, barbed thing of carved antlers, elegant and cold. In the far distance, yellow lanterns hung near pillars like firebug lights, hiding more corridors and paths into the caves beyond. 

It was an uninviting, beautiful place, and the elf sitting on its throne was doubly so. 

Unlike Elrond, who had an ageless wisdom and wit glittering in his kind eyes, this elvenking looked like an immortal predator. Everything about him was sharp, from his blue eyes and sleek white hair to his long, elegant hands. He tracked Thorin’s movements with a slight, domineering smirk, apathy etched in every line of his beautiful face. 

If she’d never met and befriended Arwen and her father, Bella might have understood Thorin’s hatred of elves simply by looking upon this distant lord. 

The elvenking stood and met with his son and his captain, leaving Thorin alone on the other side of the platform. 

Bella took one look at his clenched jaw, the hatred building in his eyes, and guessed how quickly this might devolve into a fight.

Throwing caution to the wind, she moved forward until she was only a few inches from Thorin, and whispered, “Don’t make a fuss, but—”

He didn’t cry out or jerk around, bless him, but his face froze in an expression of such shock she couldn’t help the small laugh that broke from her lips. “You look like a dead fish.”

His expression tightened, eyes flicking toward the elves on the other side of the platform. 

“You’re not going mad,” she continued, pressing a hand to his chest and cupping his face. “I’m really here. Don’t lose your temper.”

He relaxed, though his eyes were still tight with confusion as he turned his face ever so slightly into her palm. 

“Courage, Thorin Oakenshield,” she whispered as the elves broke apart. She gave him a small peck on the lips, earning her a barely audible grunt from his chest, and stepped to the side. As the elvenking approached, she pressed herself back against a pillar, watching as Thorin’s expression remained clear and steady, the only sign of his emotions the clenching and unclenching of his hand. 

“Well met, Thorin, son of Thráin,” he called as he circled. “Though, I heard of your father’s passing, so I presume I should call you _your majesty_.”

Thorin’s voice was low, but not threatening, as he said, “Call me whatever you like, Thranduil.”

Bella frowned, but she supposed it was better than insulting the elf outright. 

“So informal. Indeed, you seem rather at ease. My son tells me you have been exceedingly cooperative the past week. Tell me, Oakenshield,” the elvenking smiled, a barbed, slicing thing, “has old age pounded that proud heart of yours into submission at last?”

Thorin’s eyes grew stormy as Bella’s hands clenched. The nerve of this elf—and she’d thought _Beorn_ was rude. 

“Though your son’s hospitality was _lacking,_ it is not within a dwarf to break an oath once made. I promised peace for passage.” He tilted his head with a hard smile. “I would not expect a snake like you to understand that.”

The elvenking’s smile faltered, replaced by a look of menace so fierce Bella marveled at the change. She’d thought the elves incapable of quick emotions like the other races of Middle-earth, but perhaps peace and beauty had smoothed the elves of Rivendell more so than their cousins in this darker vale.

“Do not lecture me on _oaths_ , dwarf.” He circled Thorin and bent, speaking directly into his ear. “Or have you come to give back what your people stole from me centuries ago?”

Thorin tensed and growled, “My people stole nothing. We were rightfully given—”

“Your forefathers’ greed was so vast not even that mountain could contain it. Do not speak to the full history of your people and their taking of any jewel they set their eyes on.” The elf straightened and swirled to Thorin’s front. Cold derision dripped from his words as he said, “But they fell just the same, didn’t they? Perhaps you should be happy the dragon took Thrór’s kingdom from him before the curse of your line could descend in earnest.”

Bella watched Thorin control his temper, his nostrils flaring and his body bending forward as if he might launch himself at the elf. She gripped her sword, ready to draw and defend him if he couldn’t rein in his anger. Behind the elvenking, she saw his son and captain do the same. 

It took Thorin some time, but he relaxed, coiling into a tightly held rage that only shone in his eyes. 

The elvenking’s brow furrowed in amusement and honest surprise. “You _have_ changed, Thorin.” His cold eyes swept again over Thorin, as if waiting for him to explode. “Why did you enter the Greenwood?”

“Can you not guess?” Thorin muttered, glaring at the king with such loathing, Bella could feel it from a few feet away. 

She knew how much it must be costing him to hold his tongue. _Just a few more minutes_ , she urged. 

“You seek to reclaim your home.” Thranduil’s face smoothed, considering. “A foolish venture. One that will no doubt end in your death.”

“And your happiness.”

“I would take no happiness in your death, Thorin Oakenshield,” the elf said solemnly. “Do you have proof the dragon is dead?”

Thorin laughed darkly. “Why yes, didn’t you see the skull I left on your doorstep?”

“Do not think to jest with me of dragons or their fire,” Thranduil said sharply. “I had claimed the lives of many drakes of the Far North before your grandfather was weaned. You will wake the beast and turn his fury on us all. It will lead to only death and ruin.”

Thorin tipped his head back. “The birds are returning to the mountain. Smaug is dead.”

The elvenking’s eyes widened imperceptibly. “And if he is not?”

“That is my burden to bear.”

“Not alone.” Thranduil stepped back, pausing at the steps to his throne. “I will release you and your companions on the condition that once you retake Erebor, the gems which are rightfully mine will be returned to me within the year.”

Bella bit her lip as Thorin seemed to war with himself. It was silent for a long time, before he muttered, “If that is your ransom, I will pay it.”

_Oh you beautiful, glorious dwarf,_ she thought, eyes closing in relief. 

“And,” Thranduil said, icy voice cutting through the hall, “if the dragon lives, I will need your word that you will abandon this endeavor entirely.”

Any calm Thorin had maintained in the face of the elvenking’s earlier demand vanished. “You have no right.”

The elf arched an eyebrow. “I have every right to protect my lands from the desolation brought on by your grandfather’s greed.”

“Protect your land?” Thorin shouted, the sound echoing through the hall. “Have you stepped outside your pretty gates, Thranduil? Your land is a corrupted _bog_ , crawling with vermin and filth. Your land is not fit for rats. If you care so much about your _lands_ perhaps you should look to your own borders and not think to keep me from my people’s legacy.”

“Your people’s legacy is death and _madness_ , and I will not let your greed destroy my kingdom as it destroyed yours,” Thranduil snapped. “It is no matter. You cannot leave these halls without my word, so here you will stay, Thorin, son of Thraín, son of Thrór, King Under the Mountain, until you see the reason of my counsel.”

Thorin spat on the ground at Thranduil’s feet, growling something in dwarvish which made the elvenking’s lip curl. 

“Rage at me all you like, but I have time enough to withstand even your obstinance. For your sake, and for the sake of your companions, I hope you see reason soon. Until then, perhaps my dungeon will encourage you to think on your foolhardy obsession.”

Thranduil stalked up to his throne, sweeping his sleeves in a dramatic arc, as his son moved toward Thorin. Bella noticed in interest that the elf-prince seemed entirely unamused with his father’s display—that, or he was simply bored. She couldn’t tell without a doubt, but there seemed to be something of unease in his eyes.

“What crime have these dwarves committed, majesty?” the captain said softly, her eyes firm on the ground at her feet.

Silence fell over the hall as the elvenking turned his cold eyes slowly on her. “They have traveled the elf-path without my leave.”

The captain nodded with her eyes still averted. “They did, and we would be well within our rights to show them out of the Greenwood, as we have shown others. Imprisonment in your dungeons—”

“Tauriel,” the elf-prince said, shaking his head with a pointed look.

“No, let her speak,” Thranduil mused. “Let it not be said that I am above hearing the valued counsel of my Captain of the Silvan Guard.”

Something in the elf’s expression flinched, so subtle Bella barely saw it. 

When she spoke again, her high voice was clear and strong. “I would not question your judgement, majesty, but I cannot see the good in keeping these dwarves against their will.”

For a moment, there was silence in the grand hall of the Woodland King. Bella had to admire the determination shining in the elf’s eyes. She looked—young, somehow, if an elf could look young. Her green eyes held none of the gravity in the elvenking’s or Elrond’s, or even Arwen’s, in her own way. 

The elf-prince looked between the captain and his father in alarm as if he were on the verge of speaking, when the king smiled. “And that is why you are not king, Tauriel. You are ignorant of dwarvish folly, and lack the foresight to see what will come of this fool’s quest.”

Tauriel swallowed, and inclined her head. “Of course, majesty.”

“Stay a moment, captain,” the king said smoothly, and Bella couldn’t help but worry for her. There was nothing but cold threat in Thranduil’s voice, and if the look of concern in the prince’s eyes said anything, the captain was about to pay for standing up for the dwarves.

Thorin simply scowled at the elf, as if he were two seconds away from shouting at her as well. 

_Absolutely ridiculous,_ she thought as she followed him and the elf-prince back to the waiting Company. 

“You’d best hope Tauriel does not suffer for speaking on your behalf,” the elf-prince muttered to Thorin. 

Thorin turned with a snort. “It will be a dark day indeed when I spare any hope for an elf’s pity.”

As the elf said something sharp to the guards waiting around the Company, Bella jabbed Thorin in the side. “Ass,” she whispered, knocking his hand away when it shot out to grab hers. 

His eyes widened as he stared through her, only a bit to the side of her face. “Bella?” he murmured, barely moving his mouth.

Behind him, she saw Balin watching him closely, eyes narrowed in concern. “Stop talking to the air, you idiot. I’ll explain later.” She brushed the back of his hand, and smiled at the look of frustration on his face. 

Bella danced back as the elves closed in and shepherded the dwarves down another path into the depths of the Woodland Realm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Khuzdul  
>  _Inbul-hibir fundhamâd-ublag._ \- Pointy-eared lembas-muncher.
> 
> I've decided to throw out Legolas' characterization from the Hobbit movies and do my own thing, with a bit of help from the books. Tauriel is a bit changed as well, as they both are going to have a tweaked arc in this fic. Also, no love triangle, because I thought that bit was stupid. Just a one on one dwarf-elf romance for this girl :)
> 
> I hope you all are having a lovely time and not buried under a mountain of snow like me! Gotta love those New England winters. <3


	24. Stoke the Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Wonder Blind" by Karen Elson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKBBJm0G2Po&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-&index=24)

Thorin ignored the elves’ snide stares and asides as they led him down into Thranduil’s dungeons. His mind was too full of the elvenking’s taunts, of the impossible idea that Bella was…invisible? Projecting her voice and touch through the air? 

He’d heard of wizards concealing themselves with shadow and elves bending light to discourage eyes from following them, but he knew nothing of hobbit magic. How could he not have known, after all these months of traveling with her, of staring into her bird-black eyes, that she had such skill? Perhaps this was why Gandalf had insisted on her joining, because he knew of her powers. 

But _why_ had she hidden it from him?

“Uncle, she’s here,” Fíli whispered, grabbing his forearm as the elves began leading the others into separate tunnels. “Bella’s here, somehow.”

“I know.” Thorin looked around, half-expecting to feel her pinch him or hear her snort. 

“She can’t be,” Balin muttered. “No one enters the halls of the Woodland King without his knowledge.”

Thorin met the old dwarf’s gaze and swallowed his fear that perhaps he had been right—perhaps Bella was not what she appeared to be.

“Our burglar is a woman of many firsts,” he murmured.

When the elves had locked them each into their own cells far below the earth, behind bars made for the elvenking by dwarven hands centuries ago—the absolute injustice of it all—he tried to order his thoughts to no avail. After only a few seconds, however, a soft sigh made him jerk around. 

“I suppose you’re going to start pacing soon.” Bella’s voice held a laugh, but there was an edge to it, the same edge he’d heard in the Thranduil’s throne room—a brittle, manic tiredness.

He hesitated, fear gripping his heart with cold talons. “Bella, tell me what is going on. Now.”

“So imperious,” she muttered. Without any sound or warning, she appeared out of thin air in the flickering torchlight of the hall. 

Relief at seeing her, finally, after a week of not truly being able to trust that she lived and followed, made him stride forward. He slowed at the bars of his cell, fighting the urge to slam into them, and took a deep breath, trying to see her fully in the shadowed light. 

“Hullo,” she said rather awkwardly, fiddling with the buttons of her coat. 

“Bella,” he murmured, voice hoarse, “are you—”

“I’m—,” she started, but broke off with a cough at once. The sound chilled Thorin further, sounding wet and ragged. 

She braced a hand against the wall, and turned slightly toward the torchlight. 

Her skin was pale, paler even than she’d been when he saw her last. Shadows so dark they looked like smudged purple paint hung under her eyes, and her shoulders were hunched. Her clothes were tattered and ripped, her hair limp and lifeless, piled on top of her head in a ratted, gnarled nest. 

After a week alone, in the grim dark of Mirkwood, she looked like a ghost of herself.

“I’m fine,” she managed, after only a few coughs. “I’m—better, now, actually.”

Words failed him as he stared at her, any thought of what she was fading in the fear of seeing her so frail. It was all he could do not to rip the bars from their holds and catch her up in his arms. 

Damn this forest. Damn the elves and those spiders.

“Before you start shouting at me,” she said, voice gaining some strength as she straightened and stepped toward his cell, “or calling me a witch or something equally insulting, I didn’t keep this from you on purpose.”

He swallowed his fear and looked down at her outstretched hand.

A small, gold ring sat atop it, pretty enough against the dirt of her palm, but innocuously simple. 

Something tugged at him as he stared, a thought in the back of his mind—as if he’d forgotten something vital. 

“I found it in the goblin tunnels.” 

His eyes lifted to hers and he saw the apprehension on her face. She was afraid of his reaction. 

“I didn’t know what it was at first,” she continued, haltingly, “but this is how I snuck about without any of you seeing. No one knows, except for you, now. With you—,” she faltered, stifling another cough, “you nearly dying, I just forgot. And then it never seemed like the right time—”

He didn’t let her finish, but reached out through the bars for her shoulders, for her face, touching her to convince himself she was real. “Tell me you’re all right.”

She blinked rapidly, a small grin tugging at her lips. “Do I look that bad?”

_Yes. Mahal damn me, yes._ Tugging her closer, he cupped her dirty cheek. “You are beautiful.”

She made a small, sweet sound, somewhere between a sigh and a laugh. “Good answer,” she murmured. It helped to ease the tension in his chest as she shook her head, leaning slightly into his hand. The bars of his cell were too narrow to allow him much reach, but he held her as best he could. 

He shrugged off his coat and maneuvered it around her shoulders. She didn’t protest, which made him nearly as worried as the chill in her skin, the slight tremble in her frame. “Have you slept at all the past week? Have you eaten?” He couldn’t think of what to say, how to help, trapped inside the elvenking’s cell like a common criminal and her…standing there in pain… It hurt, like a physical ache in his own chest. 

“A bit,” she shuddered, “though not as much as I should have, on both accounts. I had my dwarves to save.”

She said it with such affection, such unwavering loyalty, that his chest constricted around his too-frantic heart. He sent a prayer down to Mahal for keeping him alive long enough to meet, and know her. “I am never letting you out of my sight again.”

Bella scoffed, leaned back with a scowl that almost made her look like herself. “And how are you going to get yourself out of that cage with me chained to your side, you great idiot?”

He tried to grin. “One of these days we’re going to need to discuss the way you address me.”

“Feeding your pride is low on my list of priorities right now.” She rolled her eyes and tried to step back, but he held her in place, embracing her as best he could with iron pressed between them. “Thorin,” she warned softly, tilting her head so it rested on his chest between the bars.

“You need to rest,” he murmured into her hair. It smelled of sweat and mold and smashed, sour berries, but he imagined the true scent of her filling his nostrils. “Not least because you are making me reconsider my leniency about letting you handle things on your own, and I will only grow more doubtful the longer you’re gone.”

He couldn’t let her leave again, not so soon. His life of the past three months had been a series of her coming and going, grasping at air only to have her fall into him when he was least expecting it. Dwarrows were not made for such peaks and valleys. Their hearts were as constant as the stone to weather the storm, not born with wings to follow and fly. His kind were suited for the long searching and keeping, for once _âzyungel_ was found, no dwarf in his right mind would let her go, or be so foolish as to lose her. It made an ironic kind of sense that she was determined not to be kept.

“You are taking advantage of my fondness for you, Thorin Oakenshield,” she muttered, her deep, racking sigh blowing through him. “Not very kingly of you.”

“You haven’t met many kings if you think manipulation beneath my station.”

She snorted weakly. “Yes, well, of the two I have met, you’re my favorite.”

“I realize you meant that as a barb, but I’ll take it nonetheless.”

She pulled back just enough to look at his face, and her eyes softened. “All right. Just for a while. But only because you insisted, and I am a bit tired.”

He guided her to the wall, her legs seeming to shake so badly she nearly collapsed on her own, as if her sheer force of will and obstinance had carried her this far.

“Don’t tell the others I took a nap the second I found you,” she mumbled, curling up near the bars with her eyelids already drooping. 

“Is my pride is worth less than yours?”

She smiled as her eyes closed, reaching a hand through the bars and smacking him gently in the chest. 

He caught her hand and brought it to his lips.

“Careful,” she murmured, lips twitching, “or I’ll get ideas.”

“Quite a threat for such a sleepy hobbit.” He brushed hair back from her face, smoothed the crease of her furrowed brow, every touch an attempt to reassure himself that she would be fine, that they would get out of this Mahal-cursed place. In the shadow of his mountain he could thank her properly. Instead, he simply said, “Thank you for the flowers.”

“I thought flowers were the purview of whimsical fools?”

Thorin chuckled. “I said I was happy to be wrong about you.”

She hummed, the sound stirring the memory of her voice in song. “Wake me up when the damn elves come so I can put my ring back on.”

“What happened to your love for your fair elvish friends?”

“That snide moose is not my friend.”

He grinned. If she hadn’t already secured his heart with iron and eternity, that might have done it. “I’m glad I don’t have to worry about anymore elves vying for your affections.”

She managed to open one eye and glare up at him. “You’re very sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

He pressed another kiss to her palm and shook his head. “Never, when it comes to you, _Lakhduzgêl_.”

She held his gaze until her eyes slid shut again, soft and searching. “I’m sure whatever that means, it’s rude.” She didn’t pull her hand away, however, nor did she speak again before she fell quickly into sleep. 

Thorin held her hand, her pulse a fluttering promise under his thumb. He listened to her quiet snores, watched the rise and fall of her sides. Draped in his coat, she looked small—small, and frail. 

Though he would never say it to her out loud, in that moment he hated himself for allowing her to come on this foolish quest. She was strong, and fierce, and everything he had ever wanted for himself in a partner, but his pride was a gluttonous thing. He had already taken so much from her. He hated that she was here to help him, that he had allowed her to tie herself so thoroughly to his suicidal mission to restore his people. 

He knew he took too much of that blame on himself. She was likely here for his nephews as well, and the other dwarrows in their Company. They were all complicit in tying her to their fates, all of them noble and worthy of her devotion in their own right. 

But it was his throne she had pledged herself to help him win. 

He almost felt the elvenking laughing at him from his echoing hall. His throne was built on the greed of his grandfather, and he had no guarantee that he could reforge it should this quest succeed. 

A king and a blacksmith he may be, but neither felt up to the task.

More to distract himself from such thoughts, he reached down for her other hand—still clasped around this ring of hers, he saw with a frown. He unwound her fingers slowly and lifted it from her palm. 

Bella sighed, a tremor or twitch running through her face, as if she might wake, but stilled again after a moment. 

Thorin examined the little trinket in the torchlight, running his thumb along the edge. It was impeccably made, if simple, and held a weight to it which seemed at odds with its size. Again, that prickling thought of… _something_ surfaced in the back of his mind. 

He had heard of rings which bestowed upon their wearers many incredible gifts, but none of them came without a price. His grandfather had carried a ring of power, and while dwarrows had long been immune to the corrupting evils of dark magic, it had gouged its own mark in the line of Durin. A mark of greed, and madness. 

He fought the urge to throw the ring into the darkness of the tunnel and slipped it back into Bella’s palm. The rings of power had been lost for centuries. He had more pressing, more likely worries to concern himself with. And besides, if anyone were to withstand any darkness such a ring of power might foist upon its wearer, it was her. 

Thorin took comfort in the soft sound of her snores, in the gentle calluses of her palm, and fell deep into thought. 

 

~  ✧ ~

 

Bella slept far longer than she should have, for which she scolded Thorin immediately upon waking. She didn’t know if she felt better, and she certainly didn’t look it, judging by the burning concern still etched upon his face, but she felt _more_ , which was about as good as she was going to get. Thorin forced most of his food on her when an elf dropped off what was, to Bella’s surprise, a rather extensive meal of roasted lamb and autumn squash stew. Perhaps there was something to Thranduil’s promise of hospitality, no matter how vile and cruel he was. 

After extricating herself from Thorin, overbearingly sweet and frustratingly needy—with the reassurance that she would return in a few hours and not take any undue risks to her safety, and no, she could _not_ take his coat because what was he going to say if an elf suddenly realized it had disappeared—she slipped into each of the other tunnels. She ended up reassuring every member of the Company that she was, yes, fine, even if she looked like “a ghost’s unfortunate twiggy sister,” according to Dwalin. Kíli was nearly as difficult to leave as his uncle, insisting that she eat every last bit of his food or he would start screaming his head off. Fíli might have tried to pull her through the bars of his cage if she hadn’t kept her distance and glared at him when he insisted that she was, again, being stupidly rash.

Finding her way out of the tunnels proved to be a useless affair, as they seemed to be purposefully twisted in on themselves in ways which made no sense. The thought occurred to her that perhaps there was some magic on the tunnels, or a system of hidden doors and secret passages only known to the elves. She almost ruined everything once by narrowly missing the blonde-haired elf-prince as he stalked through the dungeon, pressing herself so flat against the wall she was a mere inch from his arm as he passed. She learned nothing that first night, or the next, or the next. She spent the first day sleeping outside Thorin’s cell, at his insistence, and the next outside Fíli’s, only because he made such a fuss about her health that he needed to see her sleep once for himself or he wouldn’t believe her, before returning to Thorin and receiving a thorough scolding for not sleeping in front of him. 

When they were all out of this mess and she had energy again to be properly cross, she was going to sit all the sons of Durin down and have a nice, long chat about their possessive, overbearing natures and how utterly frustrating they were to deal with. 

For three nights, she moved through the underground complex unseen, feeling like a mouse in the shadows. At least it was warm under the ground, and the more time she spent away from the corruption of the wider forest, the better she felt. But the weight of being invisible was starting to drain her, and she worried that perhaps the longer she wore the ring, the more she might start to fade from existence all together. That sounded like the right kind of punishment for such a thing, if she were living in one of her childhood stories. 

By chance on the third night, she caught one of the elves leaving food for Dwalin, and followed him back to what she assumed was the guardhouse, a central room which looked down upon the network of tunnels which made up the Woodland King’s dungeons, where many elves bustled to and fro. She spotted the red-haired captain and, to her mingled frustration and relief, a ring of keys hanging from her belt. 

Bella liked the elf, from what little she’d observed of her over the last few weeks, and she didn’t want to get her in trouble by stealing from her.

When she told this to Thorin the next evening, readying herself for another long night of creeping through tunnels, he scowled. “You would give this _elf_ your sympathy for nothing?”

“My sympathy is not worth so much as to be that precious,” she snapped, enjoying their arguments despite herself. It made her feel normal to be cross with him. “Honestly, she stood up for you in that prickly snake’s throne-room, and most likely got an earful for it. You’d think you could be a bit nicer.”

He glowered, though she’d caught his little smile at her refusal to say the elvenking’s name. “If she is the one with the keys to our cells—”

“I _know,_ I know.” She shook her head, chewing on a rather tasty rye-bread roll Thorin had saved for her. “Although I’m not sure how much good it will do to let you out of your cages only to get caught again. These tunnels are a nightmare.”

“They’re not so difficult to manuver. They are dwarrow-made.”

“I don’t have dirt-mind—”

“ _Stone-sense_.”

“Right,” she waved a hand, “pebble-brain, because I am, you might be surprised to hear, not a dwarf. I still sometimes get lost in Bag End’s lower storage tunnels, though I’ve lived there all my life.” She shot him a sharp look as he grinned. “You will forget I said that.”

His humor was short lived, however, as he let grunted in frustration. “I hate this,” he growled, balling his hands into fists. “I am no use in here, having to watch you sneak around without anyone to protect you.”

“I’m going to ignore your implication that I _need_ anyone to protect me.”

“ _You_ might not need it, Bella,” he said darkly, watching her closely, “but I do.”

It was odd, hearing him bear his thoughts so openly, as if he’d given up entirely on concealing himself from her. She felt both blissfully, wonderfully happy, and frightened. Because she knew where this was heading, if she knew him at all, and she wasn’t sure she was ready for that conversation, coward that she was. 

He shook his head, grinding his teeth. “There must be a way out of this cursed place.” 

She fought a smile as he paced, thinking how silly it was to see a dwarvenking, especially one who looked every bit his blood no matter where he was, fuming back and forth in some dingy elf’s hole. 

He stopped and glared at her. “I’m glad you find this so amusing.”

“Bifur and Nori both decided independently to start digging out of their cells with the steel toe of their boots.” She shrugged, grinning up at him. “Humor can be found in even the direst of circumstances, if one looks hard enough.”

Thorin relaxed as his eyes swept over her face, walking toward her with a determined glint in his eye. “Would that I had your eye for such hidden gems.”

“I’ll bet you would,” she laughed, stepping just out of his reach.

Any thought of intimacy was rather hampered by the bars between them and the heavy fatigue still gripping her bones, but she couldn’t deny that Thorin’s intentions had taken something of a turn for the obvious since they’d been spending so much time alone together, out of the watchful eyes of their Company. She also supposed he had not much else to think about, locked up in his cell all day.

Not that she minded, of course. 

“Come here,” he said roughly.

She arched an eyebrow even as heat curled in her stomach. “How well do you think ordering me around is going to work for you?”

He grimaced and rested his forehead on the bars, gripping them with his hands as if he might try to pull them apart. “I don’t have many other options, burglar.”

Her smile widened. “I know.”

“You’re enjoying this.”

She popped the last bit of bread into her mouth. “Most definitely.”

He actually rumbled at her, rising a blush over her cheeks. “I will remember your teasing when I am free, Bright Eyes.”

She hesitated on her way out, finding him watching her with a soft, concerned look in his eyes. “Why did you start calling me that?”

Something flickered in his expression, like embarrassment, though the idea of the great Thorin Oakenshield being embarrassed by anything, let alone her, was laughable. “Gandalf calls you that sometimes.”

“I’m aware. Usually when he’s trying to guilt me into following one of his hare-brained schemes.” She pursed her lips, reaching up to finger the key draped around her neck, her thoughts peeking down winding lanes and moving over soft, green hills. “It was my mother’s nickname for me. I think he uses it now to soften my cold, shriveled heart.”

Thorin exhaled, eyes softening. “I didn’t know. If I offended—”

“You didn’t,” she murmured. “It’s been a long time since anyone but Gandalf called me by it, and…I quite like the sound of it coming from you.”

They stared at each other, unspoken words fluttering in her throat like moths around a flame. 

During the long, grim, shadow of Mirkwood, faced with the conundrum of the elvenking’s dungeon, she had convinced herself that their _talk_ about…whatever this was between them, would best be saved for a later day, without fear of death or capture to twist their words into something stronger, or weaker, than they might otherwise be. She didn’t want him saying anything that might be colored by his concern for her welfare, or his frustration at being trapped. Her own mind was a tangled, mist-filled place, and though she knew, maybe, what she wanted… The longer they put this off, the harder it would be, but she couldn’t for the life of her find the words to start.

“Bella—,” he began, that forceful gaze of his pulling her back.

“I should go. Don’t want to waste any time.” She winked over the discomfort in her chest. “You’re only getting more difficult by the hour, and I’ve been told I’m a domineering nursemaid. We need to get out of here before we kill each other.”

She turned before he could say anything else. Her resolve had always been a fearsome thing, something she’d honed and crafted over her many years spent as Mad Bella Baggins, eccentric old maid of Hobbiton, but the more time she spent with Thorin, the more she felt it crumbling. Damn the dwarf, but she was having a hard time remembering the subtlety of her tongue and her ability to keep people at arm’s length. 

Bella’s hands were at her throat as she walked through the long and winding tunnel and into the main hall, fiddling with the key to Bag End—so entirely wrapped up in her own thoughts that she didn’t see the captain leaving another tunnel until they nearly ran into each other. 

She swallowed her yelp, and stood very still—only to find the captain doing the same. 

With a sick, horrible dread, Bella realized that the ring still sat in her pocket. 

_Thorin is going to kill me_ , Bella thought in perfect clarity. _And then Fíli will find some way to raise me from the dead so he can kill me himself._

Strangely, the captain looked almost as horrified as she felt, green eyes wide, standing so still she might have been a statue. Silence stretched between them, until the elf blinked, and said breathily, “I wondered when you might show up.”

Bella just stared. 

“I had a thought that perhaps you were a friendly spirit, or one of the _Ithryn_ , to hide yourself in plain sight for so long.” The elf smiled, her face lighting up with an odd kind of excitement. “But you’re neither of those things, are you?”

Her mind blank, Bella asked, _“Ithryn?”_

“Spirits sent by the Valar to help the peoples of Middle Earth. Wizards,” she added.

Bella snorted, unable to help herself. “N-no, I’m not a wizard.”

“I just thought—,” the elf said hesitantly. “I know it was you leaving the flowers, and there were other small things which reminded me of the wise spirits of the Greenwood, though they’ve long left this place. You seemed so attached to the dwarves that I thought, perhaps, they’d brought one of their own with them…”

“I—well. Ah,” Bella stumbled, entirely baffled as to how to take the elf’s matter-of-fact acceptance of her presence in tunnels which were supposed to be heavily guarded against foulplay. “No, I’m not any of that.” She’d been ready to slip on her ring and run, but she almost wanted to stay simply to satisfy the elf’s curiosity. _A friendly dwarven spirit._ It wasn’t far from the truth, now that she thought about it. 

As they stood in silence, the elf’s brow furrowed in concern. “You look dreadful.”

Bella let out a bark of laughter which echoed around the tunnels. The elf moved forward so fast that Bella barely blinked before a long-fingered hand clapped over her mouth. 

“Careful,” the elf whispered, cradling the back of Bella’s head as she looked around and waited. “This place was made to carry sound out and up. Too much and it might alert more of my guardsmen. Whatever you are, you do not have the voice of a dwarf.”

Somewhere in the back of Bella’s mind, she realized that she had just let the captain of Thranduil’s guard grab and hold her. Dwalin would never speak to her again if he found out.

The elf stepped back after a moment, kneeling down so they were on an even height. Her face turned grim. “Do you wish me or my king harm?”

Bella frowned, finding it very hard to lie all of a sudden. “Your king is an ass.”

The captain pursed her lips against a smile. “He is difficult, yes, but I cannot allow you to walk these halls if you hold malice in your heart, friend.”

_She’s being serious, isn’t she?_ “I wish no elf in this or any other realm harm,” Bella said slowly. “I swear.”

The elf held her gaze, green eyes steady and unerring as they seemed to peer deep into her soul. “I believe you.”

“Why?” Bella asked before she could stop herself. “Why on earth would you believe me?”

The elf tilted her head in consideration. “Perhaps because I think you would have already had your way, if that were your intent.” A small smile pulled at her lips. “And I know your companions are not the sort to cause undo trouble, even when provoked.”

“Aren’t they?” she asked, not entirely sure if she believed the same.

“Oh, they grumbled and whined like children, but none of them lifted a finger to fight once they surrendered themselves, though they were given enough reason.”

Bella stared at her smile, and then looked behind her to the tunnel the elf had just left. It went, if she was not mistaken, to Kíli’s cell. All at once she remembered Kíli’s flirting, and the elf’s tacit acceptance of it on the road through Mirkwood. She almost laughed. If any of them might have convinced an elf of their better natures, it would be him, the little trickster.

“My name is Tauriel, though I will not ask yours, and I ask you not to tell me,” the elf murmured. “I realize you have no reason to trust that I will not turn you over to my king, but I would offer you food, and ask for a chance to explain myself further.” At Bella’s silence, she added, “Perhaps a bath?”

The elf could have sprouted horns and a forked tongue and still Bella would have happily followed her into the pits of hell if a bath waited at the end. 

“Well,” Bella said, trying not to melt into a puddle at the mere thought of being clean again, “I suppose I can hear you out.”

The elf, Tauriel, smiled knowingly, and stood. “Can you follow me unseen?”

Bella nodded as a low, grumpy voice in the back of her head which sounded vaguely like a certain dwarvenking told her she was being stupid and reckless. “Wait,” she said, “not that I’m complaining, but…why wouldn’t you hand me over to your king?”

Tauriel’s face went tight. “You are not my king’s guest, and therefore it falls to me to see to your keeping.”

“I snuck into your city.”

“Did you? For all I know you are a figment of my imagination.” Something in her eyes twinkled with a reckless light. “And even so, my duties extend to the guarding and watching of potential threats. Keeping an eye on you is my responsibility.”

_Oh dear_ , she thought as the elf turned, and waited, keeping her head forward for Bella to, presumably, work her magic. _Maybe Kíli didn’t trick her at all, and I’ve found myself in the company of a too-clever elf._ She slipped on the ring and padded forward. _I suppose she does have red hair._

Bella followed Tauriel up into the central room, and nearly lost her again when she silently screamed at the simple hidden door she took to leave the dungeon all together. _Damn elves with their tricks of the eye._ She’d pushed herself too far, if she was missing such easy signals. 

They passed more elves along their way through the upper tunnels and out into the city proper, most in the same dark green armor that Tauriel wore, although Bella noticed that her clothes were gilded in red and gold, and her weapons were of a finer, more elegant make. 

She stopped at a small door set in a row of thick trees, a long, thin door carved from the wood itself, and opened it. Tauriel made a show of saying hello to a passing couple as Bella ducked inside, feeling rather like a green boy being spirited into a hobbit-lass’ bedroom for improper fondling. 

The home was small, for an elf, anyway, with a narrow entrance hall leading to three adjoining rooms. Bella might have moved in to make space for Tauriel as she closed the door behind them, if not for the excess of clutter. 

She’d not spent enough time around elves to make any assumptions about their living situations. The only elves’ personal spaces she’d been invited into were Arwen and Elrond, and both kept a neat, if extravagant home—old tomes and beautiful instruments which presumably held some ancient mysteries Bella was too simple to understand, rich fabrics and a general sense of timeless order. 

Tauriel’s home could have sat firmly in the center of the Shire and not looked a bit out of place. Scattered papers covered in art and drawings littered the floor and walls, little knick-knacks like broken compasses and jeweled vases perched precariously on boxes of scrolls and books whose bindings had long been broken. Weapons of all kinds, knives, daggers, swords, even something which looked frighteningly like a scythe, were propped against every available surface, along with more arrows than she had ever seen in her life. 

It was cozy, and everything gave off the impression of being clearly well-loved and carefully placed, even if it looked like chaos to Bella. 

Tauriel slipped around her, graceful and lithe as she wound through the maze in a practiced gesture, beckoning Bella to follow. “I’ll need to finish my rounds for the night, but it shouldn’t take me more than a few hours. You’re welcome to stay here, if you like. There’s food enough in the kitchen,” she pointed to a small room tiled in yellow and green mosaics and packed with produce, an herb garden sitting in the window so disorganized it would have made Óin rip his beard off, “and my bed, if you need to sleep.”

Bella stared at the elf as she extracted a few things from the wash room, trying very hard not to feel as if she’d fallen through a hole into some kind of eerie dream. 

Tauriel seemed to realize her reluctance, and sagged—the sight of an elf sagging stranger than strange, as it was still elegant, somehow. “If you’d rather leave…”

“No, no,” Bella said, seeing, to her shock, insecurity in the elf’s eyes. “I’m just…confused.”

“Of course you are,” Tauriel murmured. She pursed her lips, and said in a rush, “I don’t meet many new people.”

Bella smiled. “Well, it’s not like you’ve got many travelers coming and going.”

“You’re right,” she said solemnly, eyes still over-bright. “You must think me very odd indeed to ask you into my home after meeting you only moments ago.”

“Not odd,” Bella murmured. Something twisted in her chest as she watched Tauriel lift a bow out of the large basin in her washroom, long fingers pushing her ridiculous curtain of hair behind her ears. 

“There’s soap and oil in the cabinet,” Tauriel said, “and if you—”

“I can find my way around,” Bella said, stepping forward and taking a brush from the elf’s hand. “Thank you…Tauriel. This is—I’m not sure I deserve this kindness from anyone, let alone an elf who would be well within her rights to throw me in a cell.”

The elf cocked her head, a small furrow in her brow. “I’m sure that’s not true.”

Bella laughed. “All right, if you insist.”

They stared at each other for a moment until Tauriel let out a nervous laugh. “I’ll be back soon.”

She spun and seemed to dance down the hall, not even brushing against the plethora of items hanging on the walls and cluttering the floor. When the door clicked shut, Bella just stood in the doorway of the washroom, marveling at the sheer lunacy of her life. 

If anyone had told her six months ago that she would find herself in the home of an elf, covered in spider sap and dirt from a rotting forest, with the safety of twelves dwarves resting on her shoulders, she would have laughed them out of her door with a kick on the rump for good measure. 

She smiled, shaking her head. One day she would need to thank Gandalf for being such an interfering busybody. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Khuzdul  
>  _Lakhduzgêl_ \- Bright Eyes
> 
> I'm going to be stretching Tauriel's characterization in this fic for a few reasons. The movies didn't do a great job of differentiating between her and Arwen, and for spoilery reasons, I need them to feel different. The others I hope will be clearer as we go on, but I've kind of fallen in love with her. I hope you all don't mind the change to canon. (I say that like we aren't firmly sailing in our own little dingy at this point...)


	25. We're Only Passing Through

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Time Is Dancing" by Ben Howard](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kF9ijspj3l4&index=25&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-)

Bella’s bath proved to be just as restorative as she’d hoped. She filled the basin twice, once because the water grew so foul from her weeks in Mirkwood that she hardly could get clean, and the second because she’d forgotten how blissful it could feel to simple soak oneself like a rabbit in wine. The soaps were subtle, but smelled of exotic flowers Bella had never heard of before. Just for fun, and because she was feeling more like a person than she’d felt in months, she smoothed a bit of fragrant oil through her hair which reminded her of honeysuckle blossoms her mother had kept and worn in her hair. Cleaning her clothes turned out to be less practical, as they were still ripped and torn, and she had no skill with a needle, even if she could find one in the Tauriel’s clutter. In the end, she settled for simply washing as much of the dirt and dried forest refuse off as she could, slipping it back on and letting it dry on her now warm body.

She ate her fill of tomatoes and cherries, smearing some kind of fruit compote over the lembas bread she found, which made it almost enjoyable. She ate as much as she dared, not wanting to clean Tauriel out completely, though she probably could have finished off the pantry, if she’d set her mind to it. She felt guilty for taking so much time for herself while her dwarves were pacing in dungeons somewhere under her feet, but, well, she’d always been somewhat selfish. A few hours wouldn’t hurt, especially if she might be able to learn something of the Woodland Realm. Also, she’d done much and more than was asked of her for the Company. Balin had included a line for “all necessary arrangements” in her contract for a reason. Cleanliness was absolutely necessary, as was a well-filled stomach. With the way things had gone so far, they were likely to end up trapped or stranded in a few days anyway. Might as well make the most of what luck she could find. 

Idly munching on sliced carrots and beets, almost as good as the kind she grew in the Shire, she examined the art and scrolls littered throughout Tauriel’s home, looking for something which might help her find a way to smuggle her dwarves out of danger. The art was lovely—Tauriel clearly had a natural talent for it. Bella had dabbled a bit as a child, and enjoyed doodling on her journals, but she knew enough to see a practiced hand. 

But what drew her eye were the myriad maps, stuffed into every tome and wrapped around every scroll. Maps of places Bella had heard of across far distant seas—places of the Old World, and the fabled lands of story and myth—and some she hadn’t. Some were clearly drawn by Tauriel herself, while there were others in sharper, less artistic hands. 

A picture formed in her mind of a red-headed elf, perhaps a bit strange and lonely, drawing maps of far off places, sitting in her cluttered home by herself. 

After an hour or so of searching, she finally came upon a sketch of what looked like the Woodland Realm. It spread out from a central point, what she assumed to be the elvenking’s halls, though the script was in a dialect of elvish she didn’t quite understand, and sat directly over the Forest River. Following it east, she saw that it connected with a lake, long and wide, with a ramshackle town sitting at its edge. She hadn’t studied Balin’s maps too closely before setting out from Bag End, and Thorin had kept his own map rather close to the breast after Rivendell, but she was sure the lake sat directly under the Lonely Mountain. The river might be their best bet to getting them out quickly, and without notice.

She tensed at the sound of the door opening, trying to cover the map with others she’d been looking through. “These are lovely,” she called, trying to sound casual as she turned. “I’ve been—”

Standing in front of Tauriel as she closed the door was the elf-prince, watching Bella with a cocked head and an amused smile.

_Damn it_ , Bella swore, stepping back and upending stack of books. She slipped her hand into her pocket and went for her sword. _Damn your gentle ways, Bella Baggins. Washing up and stuffing your face while the elf caught you in her trap. Fool._

“Wait,” Tauriel said, pushing past the prince and holding up her hand, “please.”

Bella’s gaze cut between the pair, noting that neither had reached for their own weapons. _Probably think they don’t need them, the slick, conniving—_

“I took you at your word,” Tauriel continued, stepping toward her slowly. “Allow me the same.”

“You neglected to tell me you were bringing company,” Bella muttered, keeping her eye on the prince.

Her eyes tightened. “Would you have come if I had?”

“No.”

The prince smirked. “It’s honest, at least.”

Rage flashed up her throat. _It?_ “More than I can say for your snake of a father.”

He merely sighed and shifted a pile of loose pages covered in curling script, revealing a chair she hadn’t known was there. 

“Legolas means well,” Tauriel said, glaring at him.

The elf-prince smiled thinly and continued his dismissive examination of Bella. “You are not a wizard.”

“You’re lucky I’m not, or I would have set you both on fire,” she snapped. The ring pressed against her finger, ready to slip on at any moment. How stupid could she be to trust a random elf who’d shown her kindness? She hated how thoroughly Thorin would lambast her for being right about them.

“Will you allow me to explain?” Tauriel asked, eyes calm and imploring. “I swear to you that both of us want the same thing.”

“I very much doubt that,” Bella muttered, grip tightening over her sword. 

“You want to leave the Greenwood in peace,” Tauriel said quickly, “and you want to leave soon. We want the same.”

Bella snorted. “Right. That’s why you locked my Company up in the first place, to let them go.”

“To defy the direct order of the king is to court treason,” Tauriel said softly. 

She had spoken up for the Company in the king’s hall, and Bella could see no reason for that, unless she’d known Bella was there and already planning to trick her—for what purpose, though? If Tauriel was lying, she was the best liar Bella had ever met. 

“Why?” she asked after a moment. 

The elf-prince shrugged as he propped his feet on a table heavy with candle stubs and silver knives. “Perhaps to get the smell of dwarf from our nostrils. That alone would be worth—”

Tauriel said something sharp in elvish, and he went silent, mouth pursing. 

“We know the dwarves traveled with a wizard from Imladris,” Tauriel said. “We had hoped to speak with him.”

The idea that anyone could have mistaken Bella for Gandalf might have, at any other time, entertained her for weeks, but as it was she merely scowled. “You wanted to speak to a wizard?”

“You’ve traveled the Greenwood,” Tauriel murmured, eyes going dark. “You’ve seen the extent of the rot and corruption which has claimed this land. Who else but a wizard might understand what has happened?”

“In my experience, wizards are good for two things—making a dramatic entrance and never showing up when they say they will.” Bella looked between them, seeing Tauriel’s desperation reflected in the tight brow of the elf-prince. 

“So a wizard did travel with you?” Tauriel asked.

She sighed, knowing somewhere that Thorin was slamming his head against a wall. “For a time. Though he didn’t enter the Greenwood. I’m sorry,” she added, unable to keep from asking, “aren’t elves on good terms with wizards? Why hasn’t your king sent for help from the White Council if there’s a curse on this forest?”

Tauriel looked uncomfortable, but the elf-prince gave a derisive laugh and said, “My father has spent so long locked away in his halls that he forgets the world outside does not bend to his every whim. He thinks the corruption a momentary trifle he might outlast.”

“Even I can see that’s stupid,” she muttered. 

“Stubborn, not stupid,” he mused. “Much like your king.”

“The day Thorin locks your father away for refusing to do whatever he says, we’ll call them even,” she said. “Until then, we’ll keep _my_ king out of this, all right?” She swallowed her irritation at the amused look on the prince’s face. “If you want a wizard, I can’t help you. Neither can anyone in my Company.”

“But surely you must know how to contact him,” Tauriel urged.

Bella let out a sharp laugh. “You’ve never met a wizard, I’m assuming?”

“Not exactly, though I have seen the Brown Wizard pass through the wood on occasion.”

“The Brown Wizard,” Bella repeated, a clear image of a small man in rumpled brown burlap with huge rabbits pulling his sleigh flashing in her mind. “Radaghast?”

“How many wizards do you know?” the prince asked with a growing smile. “Aren’t you a well-traveled little thing.”

“And you’re a lanky, pompous ass,” she shot back, “yet I don’t feel the need to remind you of it in polite conversation.”

He blinked in surprise, and his fine features scrunched in affront. “How dare—”

“Settle down,” she said, rolling her eyes, “that’s not even the worst thing I could think of. You’re a prince, learn to take insults better.”

Tauriel laughed. “She has a point, _gwador,_ ” she murmured.

The prince deflated, looking intensely displeased in a way only those with royal blood could look, as she’d learned during her time spent with the descendants of the line of Durin. 

“How long has the forest been like this?” she asked, curious despite herself.

“Fifty years,” Tauriel murmured sadly. “It was a beautiful place, the envy of even Lothlórien, the Golden Wood.”

“ _Fifty_ years, and your king has done nothing?”

“Fifty years is but the blink of an eye to one as long-lived as my father,” the prince said in a subdued voice, eyes distant and hard. 

Bella sagged into the wall, letting her hand fall from her sword. _Fifty years._ Her entire life was just a blink of an eye to an elf. If ever she needed to check her ego, now she knew who to talk to. 

“The Greenwood is dying, friend,” Tauriel murmured. “Dark forces gather in the depths of the wood, and in the south. We have been fighting, but it is no use. This is no normal evil corrupting the land.” She took a few steps toward Bella, sitting on a stool next to her kitchen. “Do you not think your wizard might attempt to meet you again?”

Bella frowned, knowing exactly what she meant to do by calling her ‘friend.’ It was hard not to like the elf, honestly. There was an innocence about her, a lightness to her eyes and an earnest look to her face. Which was all probably Bella’s imagination, as Tauriel was likely older than the Shire itself. 

Gandalf had intended to meet them at the Lonely Mountain before Durin’s Day, though she guessed he would most likely be late. He _would_ show up, that much she knew about him. Even if it took him a few more years, he would arrive with a smile and a twinkling pair of eyes and ask why no one was waiting on the stoop to greet him with tea.

“He might,” Bella said after a time, “though I’m not sure he could do much. He’s not the growing type. Or the healing, really. He mostly bumbles around and sometimes puts on rather nice firework displays.” She paused. “I suppose he does have a knack for blowing smoke out his—”

“The _Ithryn_ hold magics short-lived folk rarely understand,” the prince said dismissively, though he leaned forward in his seat, interest kindling in his eyes. “At the very least, he might be able to spread news of our need.”

Bella looked between them, a needling sympathy threading into her thoughts. “Are you not allowed to leave the forest?”

“You think we would resort to asking,” the prince looked her up and down, “whatever you are, for help if we could?”

“I am a _hobbit_ , thank you,” she said darkly, her sympathy for the prince taking a sharp nose-dive. 

“No one has left the Greenwood for decades,” Tauriel said softly. 

Under the sadness, Bella saw an urgency in the elf’s eyes, a desperate searching for something—which pulled at that hard place inside her chest. She might have been able to leave the Shire whenever she liked, but she understood the feeling of being trapped in a place one loved. 

“I can’t promise you much, as I’m sworn to another quest and I will not abandon my Company for anything,” she said slowly, finding it hard to look away from Tauriel’s eyes, “but if I see my wizard, or any others, I will pass along your message.”

Tauriel sighed happily and rose, pulling Bella into a hug. The sudden emotion was startling from an elf. “Thank you, friend. You know not how long we’ve waited for someone to enter the Greenwood with ties to the outside world.”

Bella patted her awkwardly on the back, watching the elf-prince’s eyes soften as he looked upon Tauriel. Brotherly affection in their pale blue depths— _gwador_ was one of the few elvish words Bella knew—but it fled just as quickly as Tauriel straightened.

“I’m guessing that’s why Thranduil is loathe to let my Company leave?” Bella asked, watching the prince closely. “He doesn’t want this getting out.”

“My father’s pride has grown roots,” the prince said dispassionately, rising to his feet with all the grace of an elk. “He would keep your dwarves here until they died of old age, and not tell their relatives of their passing for another hundred years.”

Bella’s stomach dropped at the thought. 

“Whatever Oakenshield is hiding in that mountain, my father wants it, though I know not why.” He shrugged. “It might simply be that he is bored, and thinks your king amusing. I can no longer differentiate between one of his moods and a grievance which runs deep.”

“You’ll pardon me for asking, princeling,” Bella said, getting a grim kind of pleasure from the annoyed crease in his brow, “but you seem less than interested in all of this. How do I know you won’t run off to your father the moment you leave?”

He met Tauriel’s gaze for a moment, an understanding passing between them, before he arched an eyebrow. His voice lacked its usual airs as he said, “I’ve lived in this forest longer than you can comprehend, halfling. I love these trees in a way which defies speech, or reason. It is my duty as Prince of the Woodland Realm to guard and keep it whole, and while my father has forgotten the task set down to us by my forebears of old, I have not. I will see my home restored, even if I have to release a few dwarves and play party to a _hobbit’s_ whims to do it.” He turned for the door, but paused. “When you leave, remember that not all elves of the Greenwood were your enemy.”

Bella waited until the door closed before she turned hard on eyes on Tauriel. “That was a pretty speech, but if he endangers the lives of my dwarves—”

“He won’t.” Tauriel sighed. “Legolas bleeds for this forest the same as I, and his father’s refusal to listen causes him much distress, though he doesn’t show it. Don’t judge him too harshly.”

“He makes it difficult,” she muttered, feeling a little like a calf being led to slaughter. 

They stood in silence for a time, before Tauriel murmured, “I am sorry to deceive you.”

Bella breathed deep and shook her head. “I was going to steal your keys from you when you got back, so I suppose I’m just annoyed you bested me first.”

Tauriel smiled. “You are like your dwarves—prideful and stubborn.”

Bella’s eyes narrowed at the familiarity. A surge of protectiveness sharpened her voice as she asked, “Do you often visit my Company at night?” 

Tauriel blinked, and her face smoothed into a poor mask of innocence. “Hmm?”

“I’ve never seen you visit Thorin, or any of the others. Was there a reason you were sneaking out of that particular tunnel when you saw me?”

Tauriel stood with perhaps a fraction less grace than normal, moving around Bella into the bathroom to let down her hair from its half-braids. “Is it so strange that I would check on my charges? I am Captain of the Guard. We should really talk about ways you might slip out of the Woodland Realm unnoticed. The longer you remain, the harder it will—”

“No, no,” Bella said darkly, “I’d like an answer to my question.”

Her face tensed, but she continued, “How are you feeling? You look much better than before. I might even be able to lend—”

“Tauriel,” she snapped.

The elf met her gaze in the mirror, a healthy amount of fear in her eyes. 

_Add that to the list of things I’d never thought to see_ , Bella thought with a frown. “Kíli’s nice, isn’t he?”

Tauriel swallowed, eyes wide like some startled doe. “He is.”

“And charming.”

“You would know better than I.”

“I would.” 

They stared at each other, and though Tauriel might have been an elf graced with immortality and infinite patience, she faltered under Bella’s stubborn gaze. Her hands dropped, the enormous curtain of her hair falling in soft waves down her back. Bella almost growled in jealous frustration as she saw that there were no twigs or leaves stuck in her auburn tresses, the lot of it smooth and untangled as if it had been just brushed. Her own hair had taken nearly half an hour just to comb into something resembling a knot.

“You will think me a fool,” Tauriel murmured, so quietly Bella almost didn’t hear her.

“I met you only a few hours ago,” Bella said, hopping up to sit on the table in the hall, almost knocking over a few glass figurines. She picked one up, running her fingers over the smooth back of a horse to give the elf some time to settle. “I’m not sure I’ve spent enough time with you to think you anything more than a bit of a magpie, with all these little trinkets.”

Tauriel’s eyes softened as she faced her and looked down. “I don’t know what to say.”

“How often have you two…talked?” Bella asked feeling rather strange to be questioning an elf about any entanglements she might be having with a dwarf. That they got along at all must have been a miracle in and of itself. 

“Every night for a few hours.”

“A few _hours?”_ Bella lowered her voice as Tauriel winced. “What on earth are you two talking about?”

Her long fingers combed through her hair in a nervous gesture. “At first, it was simple things. He was playing with a runestone in his hands, and I asked him after its significance.” She smiled—the small, secret smile of someone confessing to something precious, Bella saw with a sinking unease. “He gave me a rather rude fright, told me it was cursed and that if any who looked upon it, be they not dwarf, would go mad.”

“That sounds like him,” Bella muttered.

“He told me it was his mother who gave it to him. I don’t know how it happened, but we simply started talking, and it just…” She sighed. “It was as easy as falling through air.”

Kíli had never spoken about his mother to Bella before. All she knew of Dís was from Fíli, and the brief mentions of her from Thorin. She had to swallow a small flicker of jealousy that Tauriel knew more of this dwarf so connected to Thorin and his nephews than she did.

“He is,” Tauriel said with a slight, wistful smile, “unlike anyone I have ever met before.”

_At least I won’t be the only one Thorin kills for trusting an elf._ “Why are so eager to help us, if you like him? You’d think you might want him to stay, if you’re getting along so well.”

Tauriel frowned in confusion. “You think I would purposefully keep him against his will because I care for him?”

“Care for him? As in…” 

She looked both lost and certain as she murmured, “Have you never met someone whose soul sang in harmony with yours?”

Her words struck something inside Bella, the same place which warmed whenever Thorin let his gaze grow intense, when they were alone and she wondered what her life might have been like if she had never met him, how much poorer it would have been. 

She fumbled for something to say, some joke which might cut the tension, but she found nothing. Tauriel’s words were too earnest to find a crack in which to hide. 

“I told you I would sound foolish.” Tauriel smiled, embarrassment furrowing her brow.

“You don’t,” Bella murmured, throat tight.

“I know I will likely never see him again once he leaves the Greenwood. Even if the forest heals and Thranduil relaxes our borders, there is no love between your king and mine.” Her gaze grew solemn. “I may be a fool, but I am not ignorant in this.”

“Does your prince know?” she asked, not wanting to stir calm waters.

“He does.” Tauriel straightened slightly. “Though he disapproves.”

“And you don’t care that Kíli’s a dwarf?”

Her eyes clarified. “Elves and dwarves have not always hated each other. There is no reason why they must now.”

Silently, Bella agreed, though she could never see most of her Company thinking of elves as anything other than a nuisance, at best. If any of them could, though, it would be Kíli. 

“I just realized that you don’t know my name,” she said lamely, feeling rather stupid for questioning Tauriel’s intentions. The elf was about as malicious as a deer, and far more sweet. 

“Not knowing who you are will help should my king discover us,” Tauriel said quickly, seeming to appreciate the change in subject. “I have no skill at deception, and the more honest I can be, the better.”

“Yes, but I’m not important enough for my name to make any kind of difference. It’s Bella,” she said before Tauriel could object again. 

“Bella,” Tauriel repeated, lips pursed. “Obstinate to a fault.” A flash of humor glinted in her eyes. “You see how I might mistake you for a dwarven trickster spirit?”

The more time Bella spent with Tauriel, the more she saw exactly how easily Kíli might fall all over himself to win her affection. She felt like a shaft of sunlight in a dark wood. She laughed, shrugged. “It’s not the worst thing to be called.”

They launched into discussions of getting her and her dwarves out of the Woodland Realm without Thranduil catching them, bustling about Tauriel’s small home and pouring over maps. As they talked, Bella watched the elf with tight eyes, sadness pulling at her heart when she thought of Tauriel alone in her crowded house after they’d all gone.

 

~  ✧ ~

 

Thorin had grown tired of pacing after the first day trapped in the elvenking’s dungeon. He loved the stone and the earth as he did his kin, but being shut away inside cells made by his own ancestors was starting to make him long for the sky and the fresh air again. Such thoughts, strange for a dwarf and even stranger for Thorin, burrowed deep into his mind, and the only way to divest himself of them was by exerting some physical energy. He’d been spending too much time with Bella, who loathed the ground and the dark and made no attempt to hide her dislike for his benefit.

He spent hours going through sets of basic forms for keeping his muscles limber, wanting to be prepared for whenever Bella found them a way out. He refused to be caught stiff and soft at the mercy of an elf again. Also, it helped to distract him from lying on his back, thinking of his _âzyungel_ crawling through the elvenking’s realm on her own. 

The elves had left him buckets of water to clean and attend to other needs, to his begrudging surprise. It would be just like Thranduil, the grinning betrayer, to provide the best accommodations even as he rotted behind bars. 

He was in the process of drying himself off after a short practice when he tensed at a low whistle.

“No, no—don’t stop on my account. In fact, you can go back to whatever you were doing before which got you all hot and bothered.”

He let his eyes close for a moment, the sheen of his underlying panic fading as he reveled in the sound of her voice. “This is the second time you’ve caught me unclothed, burglar. One might think you have untoward intentions.”

“Oh, no,” she laughed, high and smooth, “they’re definitely heading _toward_ something.”

His jaw clenched at the implication, reining himself in before he lost control of himself completely, and turned. “You are in a good—”

His words faltered when he saw Bella standing in the flickering torchlight beside his cell. Instead of the raw, ragged reflection he’d been expecting, he found her clean and smiling, hair ordered and neat, or as neat as it usually was, piled on top of her head in a loose knot. Her dress had been laundered as well, though there were still tears and holes in the rough linen taken from Beorn’s home. She was practically beaming, rocking back and forth on her large feet. A mischievous gleam shone in her bird-black eyes in the dim light, and her lips were quirked up in a way that told him she was very pleased with herself. 

“What did you do?” he asked flatly.

“I found a bath.”

“I can see that.” 

“Well, then why did you ask?”

“Practiced self-preservation.” Caught between thrilling at the spark in her eyes and his unease at whatever she’d gotten herself into, he said, “You look like a cat with her paw dipped in cream.”

“That scorching concern of yours was starting to wear thin every time you looked at me, so I figured I would find a way to clean myself up. Say what you will about elves, but they’ve very nice soap.” Her brow arched innocently. “I thought you’d be pleased. Or did you prefer me dripping in tree sap and sweat?”

“The latter I wouldn’t mind,” he muttered.

She grinned, walking to the bars and resting her hip against them, giving him a lingering rake over his bare chest. “Do your tattoos mean anything?”

Thorin knew what she was doing. He’d spent enough time with Fíli and Kíli when they were boys to recognize a guilty party trying to change the subject, though she was much more skilled than his nephews. The real difference, however, was that neither of his nephews had ever looked at him the way she was looking at him now, as if she might want to trace his every tattoo with her tongue. 

And she knew it too, if the confident twist of her mouth meant what he thought it did. 

He took a deep breath, heat dropping into the base of his stomach as she sucked her lower lip between her teeth. Mahal keep his wits intact in the face of _that_.

“Some represent family,” he pointed to the seven stars around the rune of Durin’s crest on the right side of his chest, the twin runes of his siblings’ names bracketing his heart, “some honor battles,” the rune-bands crossing his upper arms, the thickest and first on his left forearm detailing Azanulbizar, “while this one,” he raised his arm to show her his ribs, smirking at the slight lift of her brow as she stared, “is the result of a lost bet.”

“You’re joking.”

“I am not. Ask Dwalin.”

“What does it mean?”

“ _Bashakâl._ ” He cleared his throat, the memory of being bested by his _akrâghkarm_ still smarting over a century later. “Loosely translated? ‘He that resembles the engorged head of a dwarf’s manhood.’ ”

Her lips parted slowly, her eyes lighting up as if she’d just been told the happiest of news. “Thorin Oakenshield,” she murmured, barely suppressing a laugh, “you did not get that _tattooed_ into your skin.”

“There might have been copious amounts of _uslukhshâlak_.” 

“You know I can’t understand you—”

“I was drunk.”

She placed her hand over her mouth, mirth glittering in her eyes. “I’m not going to be able to take you seriously ever again.”

He walked over to her, drinking in her amusement, even if it was at his expense. She looked alive for the first time in days. Had he time enough, he would tell her every sordid detail of his life to keep her laughing. 

“Where did you find this bath of yours?” 

She hummed, shifting slightly as he approached. “I’m a burglar, aren’t I? Getting into places I’m not supposed to be is sort of my job.”

“Bella—”

“I didn’t raise any alarms,” she murmured, looking up at him with an impish smile, “and I am currently not bleeding out in front of you, so please stop worrying.” 

“You might as well ask me to stop breathing.”

Her smile hardened. “Right, because why on earth would you trust—”

“It isn’t about trust,” he murmured, reaching out and skimming her arm with the back of his fingers. He wanted to pull her toward him and never let go, but Bella Baggins was not a woman to be tamed, or caged—only endured, and cherished. “I know you are far more capable than most have given you credit, including myself.” He exhaled a laugh. “Mahal knows, you are the cleverest and bravest woman I have ever had the privilege to know, but for the ones I—” He stumbled on _love_ , not wanting to push her too soon. That conversation was not one he wanted to have in the shadow of the elvenking or his rotting forest. “—care about,” he continued, “I will always worry. The line of Durin has been gifted an overbearing, rigid kind of affection. Generally, I can handle it, but, as in all things, you seem determined to test my control. I need time to adjust, that’s all.”

Bella watched him, the humor gone from her eyes as she let her fingers tangle with his. “I’m not doing it intentionally. Not all the time,” she added at his snort. It took her a while, but then she murmured, “I’ve spent my whole life forcing myself to be something I’m not, Thorin. I can’t start doing the same for you.”

“No, you misunderstand,” he said quickly, tipping her chin up. “I would never ask you to change for me, Bella. I want you exactly as you are.”

Her brow furrowed, in the way it always did when he seemed to say something which surprised her. For a woman so thoroughly unflappable in the face of death and danger, he found it odd that she stumbled over the simplest things. 

“ _Oh_ , you,” she half-sighed, almost angry, before she stood on the tips of her toes and kissed him. 

This time, he was marginally more prepared, and caught her up as best he could through the bars of his cell, one hand against the small of her back. Her lips moved urgently against his, hard at first and then softening as he cupped the back of her head. She relaxed, and it was all he could do not to growl into her throat as her tongue pressed against the seam of his mouth. 

Heat bled into his chest and settled, running along his every limb and inch of skin. Kissing her was like stepping into a warm pool after a long, hard day’s work, but instead of drifting away in the current, he felt bolstered, steady—anchored by the claiming hold of her fingers on his shoulders.

A laugh shook through her hands as she slid them up and into his hair, holding his face with a firm, possessive grip. She drew back, pressed softer kisses to his nose and chin. “The noises you make,” she murmured.

“When I am free from this cage, I will kiss you properly,” he said, low and breathless as he tried to find the thread of his thoughts, “without bars or interfering nephews to interrupt us. We will see, burglar, what noises I might steal from you.”

Another laugh, humming and a bit choked, bubbled from her lips, and he grinned as the sound danced within his chest. 

“How does tonight sound?”

It took him a moment, distracted as he was by the smell of her—sweet and fresh, like a damn summer meadow—but then he blinked his vision clear. “What?”

“You did still want to leave this dungeon, right?” Her voice was a bit rougher than usual, but her eyes winked with excitement. “How about tonight?”

Wariness crept back into his mind, though he tried not to entertain it. “So soon?”

“You’re not the only one who would like to be rid of these bars,” she muttered, dragging her hands down the side of his neck to splay where they could against his chest. 

“You have a plan,” he said, trying hard not to focus on the soft press of her fingers. 

“I do,” she said. “There’s a party tonight. Everyone should be distracted and drunk, so it sounds like our best chance to slip away unseen.”

He nodded, his mind clarifying with a goal. Tonight. He could be rid of this forest in a few days, if everything went right. “How do you plan to get us out?”

She chewed on her lower lip, not meeting his gaze. “I’m not going to tell you.”

Thorin let her go, reluctantly, to take her hands from his chest and hold them in his. He did not need the distraction of her running fingers through his chest hair, not especially as she gave a little _whine_ when he put a few inches between them. _Mahal save me from the seduction of hobbits._

“Yes,” he said as firmly as he dared, “you are.”

“No,” she repeated stubbornly, “I’m not. You’re not going to like it, and I’d rather not have you shouting at me and calling all the guards down here to spoil it.”

“Why won’t I like it?”

“Perhaps because you are determined to dislike anything I do which does not involve sitting on my hands and waiting for your permission to breathe.”

“When have I disapproved of you breathing?”

“You haven’t yet, but I’m sure you will, one day.”

His jaw clenched as he tried to rein in his frustration. “Bella Baggins, you cannot expect me to agree to a plan which will likely involve you putting your life at undue risk in a ridiculous and unnecessary fashion.”

She scowled. “What happened to your lovely little speech of support after the goblin caves? I thought you were ashamed of questioning my motives.”

“I am not questioning your motives. I’m questioning your refusal to let anyone help you, you stubborn,” he pressed a kiss to her hands, “infuriating,” another to her nose, “woman.”

That brought her up short, guilt flickering across her expression. “If I tell you _some_ of it, will you promise not to shout?”

“I hope the irony of this conversation is not lost on you.” 

“You think you’re funny, but you’re not.”

He closed his eyes for patience. “I will not shout at you, as I am fully aware of the danger we are currently facing, and will not do anything to draw unwanted attention. I am, though you keep forgetting, experienced in the ways of combat and war, and can control my temper if I so choose.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Khuzdul  
>  _Bashakâl_ \- he that is a boner  
>  _uslukhshâlak_ \- strong dwarven alcohol, similar to vodka; lit. “dragon piss”
> 
> Sindarin  
>  _gwador_ \- brother in all but blood (similar to the dwarven concept of _akrâgkharm_ or _akrâgnana_ ) 
> 
> I have always liked the characterization of Legolas as a pompous and snarky little asshole, who only gains some perspective when he joins the Fellowship. Again, you'll forgive me for making my sandbox even more removed from any kind of canon. Also you will pry Tauriel and Legolas as bff's from my COLD DEAD HANDS. 
> 
> <3


	26. My Wild Flower

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["A Century Is All We Need" by Gregory and the Hawk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhi9KK5M-1s&index=26&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-)

To his credit, Thorin didn’t shout, though this was achieved only by the quick covering of Bella’s hand over his mouth. They argued for nearly an hour about the lunacy of shoving his dwarrows into _barrels_ , of all things—not only was it demeaning to even think of riding in a barrel down the river instead of fighting his way out like a proper dwarf, it was out of the question, as she seemed determined not to hide in a barrel like the rest of them, but _ride on the back of his_ , like she was some Westron horselord. He was saved her wrath after he pointed out that she could barely ride a pony and would definitely drown, when an elf arrived with his morning meal. Even though Bella wore her ring, he could feel her stare burning into him as he quickly pulled on his shirt and coat. The elf, the captain of Thandruil’s guard, strangely enough, set down his food and gave him a polite smile, to his disgust, and left without a word.

They hammered out a plan over their meal, Thorin insisting that she ride with him in his barrel only to concede when she pointed out that someone would need to get them out, unless he fancied punching his way out. She relented to his addition of retrieving their weapons, though how she was going to carry them all and get them into their barrels, he couldn’t possibly guess. He gave up when she started comparing him to a senile ox, knowing he had lost too much ground to salvage the argument.

He ended up pacing the length of his cell again as she watched, too keyed-up to sit down in front of her where she scratched notes into a piece of paper she’d found. Somewhere. Presumably where she’d also found soap and a basin and gallons of hot water.

“It will be an easy thing once we get down to the cellars,” she pointed on the crude map, drawn next to a rather insulting caricature of himself with steam pouring from his ears, “since most of the elves will be in the upper levels for the party.”

“How do you know this?”

“It’s a party, Thorin. What’s the point if no one shows up?”

“You can’t be sure about anything with elves. They might celebrate by sitting in the dark by themselves, the dull, insipid creatures.”

She took a deep breath and continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “The hard part is going to be navigating the tunnels.”

“It will not be difficult once we’re free. If this river runs under the cellars, we will sense them.”

“Oh, can you sense water with your stone-sense, too?”

He gave her a pointed smile. “ _Trust_ me.”

She rolled her eyes. “Your weapons will be in the barrels. I can do that this afternoon after the guards change shifts.”

He scowled in disbelief. “You know the guard rotation?”

He noted that she didn’t look up to meet his eyes, though there was a frustrated set to her shoulders which warned him off further questioning. “What do you think I’ve been doing the past three days?”

“Apparently, you’ve been bathing for some of that time,” he said, eyeing an errant curl which had escaped and fallen onto her neck.

“Well, that took me two days, so I still had one to figure the rest of this out,” she said sourly, drawing what might have been a forked tail on his caricature. 

“And you’re confident you can steal the keys from the captain?”

“Mhmm,” she hummed, grinning as she added little horns to his head. “I should never have listened to Lobelia when I was younger. I am a brilliant artist.”

“This plan falls apart the moment we’re outside the gates, you realize?” he pressed, trying not to enjoy the sight of her grin too much. “Even if we have the current on our side, the elves will know where we’re headed if we follow the river all the way to the lake.”

“That’s why we’re going to get off at this bend,” she pointed to another corner of the paper with a recreation of the river running out of the Woodland Realm, “and circle over these hills. It will add a few hours, but we should lose any tag-a-longs.”

He frowned, but had to admit there was sense to it. For having put it together in a few days, he was impressed. 

She grinned up at him after a moment of silence. “I accept your apology for doubting me.”

Thorin sighed, running a hand through his hair and frowning when one of his braids came undone. “Damn.”

He sat across from her, letting the braid unravel as he rolled the loose metal bead in his fingers. He had been taking ill care of his _shuktafuh_ , if they were falling out in response to his frustration.

“Is there a meaning to those as well?”

He stilled, found her watching him with a soft smile. “Yes. They are gifts from family, or those who intend to become family.”

“Really?” Her brow furrowed in realization. “Is that why no one will help me with my hair?”

He grinned. “It would be a little like asking to pet your feet, I think.”

“Well, that’s not necessary for marriage,” she muttered as a blush rose on her cheeks. “That’s just nice. Does it have a secret, special name too?” 

“We do not generally share our language with those outside our race. Khuzdul is sacred.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Is that why you lot use it to swear all the time?”

He had to concede that she had a point. Dwalin certainly didn’t seem to hold with the old customs where his anger was concerned. “They are called _shuktafuh_ —kin-beads.”

“They’re aspirational, then?”

“If you want to think of them that way. Though most don’t offer _shuktafuh_ without a reasonable expectation of acceptance in the recipient.”

She set aside her paper and chalk, scooting forward and folding her legs under her dress. “So if I offered to help you braid that back in,” she said slowly, “that would be rather forward of me.”

Stillness settled over him, and for a moment he forgot to breathe. 

“I’m not offering,” she added softly, “if that makes you uncomfortable.”

“It doesn’t.” He cleared his throat. “It would be forward,” he managed, choosing his words carefully, “if you didn’t intend to follow through on the act.”

She hummed, fiddling with the edge of her dress. “Dwarven courting sounds like it has a lot of rules.”

“It can.” How in all Mahal’s glory had they come to this subject so fast? Though, he supposed they had spoken of love within a week of meeting. It made some sense, in as much as anything else about his life since she’d fallen into it made sense. “It’s old-fashioned, but many of the noble families still abide by the customs.”

“Do _you_ abide by the customs?”

“Not generally, no.” He began to place the bead in his mouth to re-braid his hair, when she held out her hand to hold it for him. 

“I won’t help you,” she murmured. “Promise.”

He dropped it into her palm, watching as the silver caught the light of the torch over her shoulder. She examined it carefully, her small fingers turning it over to look at the carvings etched in intricate detail around the edges. 

“It’s beautiful,” she murmured.

“It was my father’s.”

She looked up, eyes filling with sympathy. 

“And my grandfather’s before him, and his father’s before him.”

“Oh, dear, I had no idea,” she said quickly, offering it back.

“It’s all right,” he murmured with a smile, his chest feeling tight as he watched her cradle it in her hand, as if she cradled the legacy of his people in her clever fingers. He supposed she did, in a way, if this quest turned out how he planned. 

If he’d realized what he was handing over to her when they set out from her house all those months ago, he might have been kinder to her in the beginning. 

“Are they always heirlooms?” She nodded toward the bead on the other side of his face.

“No,” he began braiding, the distraction welcome as his thoughts turned traitor to his heart, “the ones given to us by an intended are meant to crafted by hand, as a sign of the new union. Theoretically, a dwarf would have three beads. Two from his or her parents, and one from their spouse.”

“How many spouses does Glóin have, then?”

He laughed. “One, but she is very devoted. Again, three is more of a ceremonial amount. It’s the intention behind them which matters. Take Fíli’s beads. He has four, one from his mother and father, one from me, and one from Dwalin.”

“Dwalin can make beads?” she asked with a frown. “That dwarf is a collection of surprising talents.”

“All dwarrows are taught as children. Some take to the skill better than others.” He smiled at the memory of Dwalin laboring over the damn thing for almost a week before coming to Thorin with a painfully awkward plea for aid. “He might have needed a bit of help.”

“Do you have one from him?”

He snorted. “No, I never asked that of him.”

“But you two are close?”

“Very,” he mused, warming at her rapt attention. “I would be happy to go into the finer details of dwarven familial customs, if you like, but I think we lack the time.”

She shrugged, chewing on her bottom lip, almost self-consciously. “I just—there’s a lot to know.”

“We call it _akrâgkharm_ ,” he said after a moment, the idea that she wanted to learn about him, about his people, making his chest tight with unbridled hope. “When two dwarrows share a love beyond blood, and form a union of brotherhood, we bind ourselves with a ceremony. Bonds are sacred to Mahal, and as such, we treat them with reverence. And secret names,” he added, mouth twitching. 

A ghost flitted across her vision, faint and distant, but it seemed to dim her expression somewhat. “You make these…shuck-tiff-ah—as well?”

He nodded, trying to keep from laughing at her abysmal pronunciation. “Though I have never been good at the finer crafting arts. That was my sister’s trade. It still is. She is one of the finest craftswomen in the Blue Mountains. Though you would be wise not to mention that to Glóin, as you’ve no doubt heard of Dâgri’s many talents. He is rather stubborn on this one issue.”

She hummed a laugh. “And your craft was…?”

“The forging of weapons and arms. I worked for a time as a blacksmith in human villages, traveling, aimless. After I heard of my father’s passing,” he added softly, “I was distraught. Working helped me focus my pain and anger, rather than sitting about and letting it fester.”

She leaned closer, the bright softness in her eyes soothing the old ragged edges of his past. “I know a bit of what that’s like.”

He held her gaze, his pain rising, but held at bay by the strength he found in her. “Indeed.”

“Kíli doesn’t wear any beads,” she said, steering them away from sadder thoughts. 

He almost bent to kiss her again as he took her offer and grinned. “Kíli is and has always been a terror, determined to cause all those who care for him as much frustration as he possibly can.”

Bella snorted, looking away as she controlled her laughter. “That, ah,” she cleared her throat, “that sounds like him.” 

He frowned as she composed herself, wondering at the slight tension in her smile. 

“So is there anything else to courting, then? Fíli told me it takes a long time.”

He stilled as jealousy spiked through him. “You and Fíli spoke of courting?” he asked, trying not to sound as though his chest had just hardened painfully at the thought. 

“Easy,” she murmured, nudging his knee with her toe, “it was a purely theoretical conversation, and he only mentioned it because I asked.”

“You asked?”

“After Bree.” She held his gaze pointedly.

“Ah,” he settled, “you were curious—after our conversation in the Prancing Pony?”

“When you spoke intensely about how love was a horrible, painful experience and then refused to talk to me in anything other than a growl for a few weeks. Yes, I was curious.”

He finished his braid, taking the bead from her hand and swallowing his discomfort at her laying out his error so plainly. “It can be. Dwarven custom has necessarily been sacrificed over the years as our kingdoms have diminished. It’s difficult to court properly in the shadow of exile, or migration. For the past few hundred years, we have been a dislocated people, so we make do with the time we have, and the resources available to us.”

“How long have you had the Blue Mountains?”

“Some think it is where the Seven Fathers awoke in Middle Earth and so it has been ours since before the First Age, but,” he shook his head, “Ered Luin is a complicated place. It used to be a thriving kingdom, but over the years it’s fallen from its former glory, like so many others. It is ruled by a council now, and more prone to turmoil and political machinations than stability.”

“Oh, I’m sure you loved that,” she said with a chuckle, drawing her knees up to brace them against her chest. 

“I hated it.”

“What, you, needing to listen to other people’s opinions and find common ground?” She chuckled. “Sounds like a fate worse than death for the mighty King Under the Mountain.”

He tried not to smile even as his pride stung. “You act as though I dictate your every whim, and yet I am sure I haven’t been able to get you to do anything I’ve wanted since we’ve met.”

“I joined your Company.”

“That was on the behest of Gandalf.”

She shook her head, pushing her hair back behind her ear coyly. “You wanted me to join. You barely protested at all when I finally agreed. I know you now. If you hadn’t wanted me to join, you would have put up much more of a fit.”

“You are very sure of yourself,” he murmured, reaching for her hand and bringing it to his lips. 

“Sometimes,” she whispered, eyes wide and dark, “getting better when it comes to you.”

He hummed a laugh, kissed each of her fingers in turn, the scars from her brush with death in the mountains starting to fade. 

“Thank you for letting me come.”

He met her gaze, startled by the certainty in her voice. “Are you truly grateful? After everything…”

After everything that had happened to her, after being hurt and nearly killed, surrounded by strangers in an unfamiliar place—she was still grateful. He’d wondered over the past few weeks, watching her pain when she thought no one was looking, the hardships of traveling through this diseased forest. He would not begrudge her for regretting, if she felt it might have been the wrong decision to join him.

She smiled sadly and fingered the end of his new braid, brushing it back behind his ear. Her touch burned where it trailed over his skin. “Even if I hadn’t been going crazy in the Shire, I would be grateful. To meet you, and your Company, to share in your quest.” She exhaled sweetly and cupped his cheek. “It has been the greatest honor of my life, Thorin. I meant what I said outside the goblin tunnels. I will help you win back your home. I swear it.”

If there was ever any doubt of him deserving her, it was put to rest in the certainty of her voice. 

He didn’t, and likely never would. 

“And what of your home?” He stopped himself from asking her outright the question which had been building at the back of his mind. Erebor was so close he could feel it in his bones, and yet—if she were not there with him, at the end, all of this would be worth nothing. 

Her eyes went tight, a blush breaking over her cheeks as she stared at him. “One thing at a time,” she murmured.

The sound of soft footfalls broke their peace. 

“ _Shit_ ,” she whispered, grabbing the piece of paper on which all their plans had been drawn and fumbling in her pocket. “I have to go.” She gave him a quick peck on the lips through the bars. “Be ready.”

He ground his teeth as she disappeared, rising to his feet and forcing himself not to slam his fist into the dirt. Damn each and every elf, the interfering wraiths. 

Surprise broke his anger as, again, the captain appeared at the end of the tunnel. 

He watched the elf set down his tray and asked, curious despite himself, “Is it custom for the Captain of the Guard to deliver meals to her charges?”

The elf arched a brow, though there was something pointed in her voice as she said, “Not usually, no. The festivities tonight have left me shorthanded, however, and we all must compensate. My men are due their celebration.”

He grunted. “I had not thought any elf to be capable of lowering herself to act below her station.”

She merely blinked and tilted her head, a piercing honesty in her unsettlingly green eyes. “I am a Sylvan elf, your majesty. Of the Eldar, there are none lower in status than my kind. Even a dwarven king would rank higher than I.”

He said nothing, though guilt trickled into his mind as she left. _Feeling pity for an elf_ , he thought with a frown, shaking his head to clear it. This dungeon was starting to drive him mad, if his heart was stirred to bleed for an elf. The sooner he was gone, the better. 

He began to stretch again and pace, trying not to think hard about Bella, and what she was currently doing to help win him his home.

 

~  ✧ ~

 

Bella leaned against the tunnel outside Thorin’s cell, trying to regain some semblance of calm. Her heart had been dancing to a merry tune for the past few hours, so caught up in spending time with him that she’d forgotten what she was supposed to be doing to get her Company out of this mess. And then he’d had to go and talk about home, as if— _Focus, Baggins_ , she told herself as Tauriel emerged from the tunnel. 

“I’m sorry for interrupting,” Tauriel murmured, looking almost embarrassed. 

_Oh, good grief_. “You didn’t. Let’s go.”

Tauriel turned at her voice, staring unchangingly close to where she stood. “I must ask one more favor of you, Bella.”

Bella started to open her mouth, about to protest soundly, when she saw the piece of paper in Tauriel’s hand, and the name written on top. 

“I won’t have time to say goodbye, and I—” Tauriel’s face tightened for a moment, before she took a deep breath. “If you could give this to Kíli, I will forever be in your debt.”

Bella took it at once, silently cursing these races who insisted on attaching debt to favors. It was delivering a note, not loaning her money. Her heart clenched as she murmured, “Of course.” She tucked it into her dress pocket before buttoning up her mother’s coat. “Though I think you’ll regret not doing it yourself.”

Tauriel smiled sadly. “Perhaps.”

She studied the elf’s face, her own sordid romance seeming rather silly in the face of Tauriel’s quiet grief. 

“All right,” she murmured, trying to remind herself that Tauriel and Kíli had known each other for a week and some change—hardly enough time to fall in love. 

It even sounded silly in her own head. 

“I’ll follow your lead.”

It took a few hours to get everything ready, and by the time all the dwarves’ weapons were in barrels in the cellar, conveniently empty with Tauriel’s subtle maneuvering of the necessary elves into the party, the festivities above were in full swing. Bella might have been able to do it all herself, if she’d had a few more days to plan, but Tauriel’s help was undeniable. Not in the least because she could barely lift most of the damn axes her Company insisted on bringing with them. 

Tauriel left her with a promise to keep her guards away from the dungeons as long as she could, and to give them time to get down the river. Bella found it hard to say goodbye to the elf, feeling as if she had tricked her into helping. As she watched Tauriel disappear into the higher tunnels, she felt again the sinking unease of knowing that, whatever happened, Tauriel would be left alone in that cramped little house with only her unpleasant prince as a friend. 

_I will drag Gandalf back here by the nose if I have to_ , she made a silent pledge as she bustled back down to Thorin’s cell, keys clutched in her hands. 

She found him pacing again—he looked like a penned-in bull, honestly. 

“Ready?” she asked, making him jerk around in surprise. 

“Bella?”

“No, it is an elvish ghost, come to torment you for the rest of your days,” she said sourly, slipping off the ring as she fumbled for the right key. On the fifth, the cell popped open and she gave a little chuckle of success. “Right, next to your neph—”

She broke off with a yelp as Thorin pushed the door open and grabbed her up into his arms, planting an urgent, hard kiss on her lips. Her yelp devolved into more of a moan as he pressed her back into the tunnel wall, practically lifting her up around his waist as he licked into her mouth with such ferocious desire that it wiped all thoughts of sad elves and barrels from her mind. 

Her fingers dug into his coat and pulled him closer, earning her a deep rumble as she tried to hook a leg around his thigh. His beard brushed roughly against her chin and neck, the sensation strange to her, as hobbits did not grow beards, and the last time they’d kissed it had been a soft thing, too wrapped up in the novelty of kissing him at all to notice how strange it was. Strange, but very, _very_ nice. 

There was promise in his touch, in the press of his waist and the heat of his skin. There was nothing of the hesitation he’d shown before, when they were fumbling outside of Beorn’s, or huddling close in the darkness of Mirkwood, or leaning through iron bars to steal a bit of each other. This kiss was slow and confident and filthy, and it made her want to shake apart in a shower of sparks.

He broke away from her mouth with a low breath, as if he were coming up for air. 

“Well—” She swallowed, her voice squeaky and high. “That was—well.”

Thorin chuckled and eased her back to the ground, bending down to nip at lobe of her ear. “I am a man of my word, Bright Eyes.”

“Right,” she said, trying to gather her wits. It proved a rather difficult task with his hands still clutched at her waist and his breath warming her neck. “Right. Good.”

“Is that all it takes to fluster you?” he asked, having the audacity to straighten her dress for her. “One kiss—”

Bella smacked his hands away, face flushed and feeling unsteady on her feet. “You are going to pay for that.”

“I hope so.”

She turned from his smug smile and clenched her jaw, battling the urge to jump onto him and rip all his clothes off, just to show that she wasn’t flustered in the least. _Confounded dwarvenkings and their stupid, lovely—_

They snuck into Kíli’s tunnel first, the one directly next to Thorin’s. The young dwarf’s eyes lit up and then dimmed as he recognized them both. “Oh—it’s you two.”

Bella’s chest tightened at the disappointment in his voice. She’d hoped against hope that perhaps it was one-sided, that maybe Tauriel was just overly attached, but there was something fragile in Kíli’s eyes she’d not yet seen in all the months of knowing him, which went beyond his kind smile and tendency toward mischief. 

“Were you expecting someone else?” Thorin asked with a frown, watching the bend in the tunnel. 

“No, of course not,” Kíli stumbled, brow furrowed as he watched Bella unlock his cell. “How did you get those?”

Bella shot him a hard look. “I stole them.”

His eyes widened. “Are we leaving, then? Right—now?”

She fought the urge to scowl as she ushered him out. He could at least _try_ to be more subtle. “Yes.”

“Unless you were hoping to rot in that cell until you died of old age,” Thorin said darkly, looking over with a frown when he heard his nephew’s hesitation. 

“Sorry, I just—news to me, is all,” he finished lamely.

Thorin glanced at Bella. “You didn’t tell the others?”

“If you’ll recall, I was a bit busy soothing someone’s nerves,” she snapped, passing by them both on her way out of the tunnel, listening for any too-quiet footfalls of wandering elves. 

“Oh, don’t tell me you two—,” Kíli started with his normal gusto, before Thorin smacked the back of his head. 

“Why do I bother?” she muttered, glancing into the main hall before moving on to the next tunnel. 

The rest of the dwarves came easily. Fíli only took a few moments to soundly chide her for daring to put all this together without his assent, in a frustratingly perfect imitation of his uncle. Dwalin pulled her into a tight-armed hug and would not let her go until she jabbed him in the spleen, which only left him chuckling as merrily as a child on his way to fair. They found Bifur neck-deep in a hole, tufts of dirt flying over his shoulder. The silent dwarf merely gave them a frown and lifted himself out, signing something which made Bofur snort so loudly he had to be clapped on the mouth by Dori. Balin, to her surprise, was almost as happy to see her as Dwalin. “Mahal bless the cleverness of hobbits,” the old dwarf said with an indulgent smile as Thorin explained her plan. 

Even if she never intended to tell any of them that Tauriel had helped her, she might have kept it to herself just to hold his approval a while longer. She knew Balin wasn’t her biggest fan, and it was nice to see his eyes turn on her with pride rather than suspicion for once. 

Surprisingly, they snuck into the cellars without trouble, meeting no elves on their way, save for one pair of soundly drunk guards. _Thank you, Tauriel_. 

The cellar, and the hatch to the river below, was clear, and as Bella heard the rushing water, the first stirrings of fear started to creep into her mind. She hadn’t much thought about her part in all of this, so focused on convincing Thorin of its merit. Holding on to the back of a barrel would be difficult, even if everything else went according to plan.

As the dwarves started getting into their barrels, each one with as many of their weapons she and Tauriel had been able to carry, Thorin seemed to sense her unease. “There would be room in my barrel, if you change your mind,” he murmured, pressing a hand to the small of her back.

She sighed, welcoming the comfort even if her ego ruffled its feathers. “No, no. I’ll be fine. I’m just not a fan of water. Hobbits aren’t naturally born to it. But, someone needs to watch for the right bend in the river. It might as well be me.”

“It needn’t be.” His brow furrowed as he lowered his voice so none of the Company could hear. “I could wear your ring, and you could sit in one of the barrels.”

“No,” she said at once, a strange annoyance flashing through her at his presumption. The ring was hers. She’d found it. Why should she let him wear it? The feeling passed just as quickly, and she found him watching her with a frown. “This was my plan, Thorin. I’ll see it through.”

“No one will think less of you.”

Her lips pursed. “I don’t care what you all think of me. I just care about making sure we don’t float into the lake on accident.”

“Very well,” he murmured, pulling her closer and pressing a kiss to her forehead. “I’ll remind you not to let go of my barrel for any reason. I cannot be held responsible for my actions if I break out and find you’ve been swept away by the current, burglar.”

She shivered at the thought, pressing her face into his chest and breathing in the solid scent of him. “Such little faith,” she mumbled. 

His grip tightened, and she thought for a moment he might change his mind and nail her into a barrel himself. 

“Hello, what’s this?” Bofur called merrily, reminding Bella that they were, unfortunately, not alone. “Have the two of you worked yourselves out at last?”

Thorin groaned as Bella smothered a laugh in his coat. 

“About time,” Dwalin grunted as he picked up the top of his barrel. “Twenty days is the final count, lads.”

Before she could even start to ask him _why_ he would need to clarify a count, he slammed the lid of his barrel down over his head. 

Nori whistled and snapped his fingers, giving Bella a wink as Glóin chucked him a small purse with a glare. “You couldn’t have waited another week?” Glóin called, thoroughly disgruntled.

“You were _betting_ —,” she started in a rage, suddenly eager to start screaming and draw every elf in all of Mirkwood into the wine cellar.

“Kill them later,” Thorin murmured. “I promise I will help.”

Bella allowed herself one moment of imagining dyeing the entirety of Nori’s hair bright blue, before setting off to help Thorin nail the dwarves into their barrels. 

“I’m just so happy for you both,” Fíli said in a bored voice as he hopped into his barrel, though there was a smile in the corners of his eyes. “Really. Never has there been a more serene couple. Your life together will be one of utmost peace and silence. My deepest blessings on this, the first day of what will surely be a calm and uneventful courtship—”

“I hope you drown,” Bella said sharply, picking up the lid of his barrel and almost hitting him in the head with it before he ducked down. She and Thorin nailed the rest of the dwarves in, ignoring their well wishes and snide comments. When she got to Kíli, she saw his troubled look, the furrow in his brow, and whispered, “You can always come back.”

His eyes cut to her in alarm. “Why would I want to do that?” he asked in an equally soft voice.

“Perhaps you find the elves of Mirkwood more agreeable than the rest of your kin.” She held his gaze long enough to see recognition break through his expression, followed fast by fear as she slipped Tauriel’s note into his hands. “Your secret is safe with me, Kíli. Don’t let that get wet.” She patted his cheek, rather enjoying the dumbfounded look on his face. “Down you get, or I’ll nail your head.”

He looked about ready to argue, when Thorin stepped over and said, “We have to keep moving.”

Bella nailed in Kíli’s barrel and practically shoved Thorin over when he tried to pull her in for another embrace. “Have I ever told you that you have terrible timing? You decide to get all touchy-feely now—”

He ignored her and said roughly, “Promise me you’ll stay safe.”

“Thorin—”

“Bella, I need to hear you say it.”

She scowled and planted her hands on both sides of his face. “Thorin Oakenshield, I promise I will stay alive long enough to make you thoroughly regret ever letting me join this endeavor of yours in the first place if you don’t get inside that barrel _now._ ”

He smiled, but didn’t try for another kiss, to her slight disappointment. She nailed him in with a wink, listening to the sounds of her dwarves shuffling inside their barrels, already grumbling and complaining about the cramped space. Taking a deep breath, she slipped on her ring, felt that eerie calm settle over her skin, and threw the lever for the cellar floor. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You all are the most wonderful readers I could have ever hoped for. I get super emotional reading your comments, and I just needed to say thank you here, in a note. <3 I love you all very much.
> 
> **Forgot to slide this in here, but my Spotify decided to delete all my playlists for some reason. I know there were a few of you following me over there, but if you're not interested in the Youtube playlist, here is a link for my [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/user/eveninglottie/playlist/0XRGXOuoZVSFH0vHlCnb87) one. Sorry for the confusion!


	27. Shook Through Every Part of Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Out of the Black" by Billie Martin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_zM_VC0Vpc&index=27&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-)

For three miserable hours, Bella clung to the top of Thorin’s barrel with white-knuckled hands, reminding herself that she had made it through goblin tunnels and orcs, through the horrible, cloying darkness of Mirkwood—she could hold on to a cold barrel for a few more minutes. She had not spent all those years running from Farmer Maggot only to drown in an oversized creek on the other side of Middle Earth, damn it.

When the river slowed and she recognized the features of the bend Tauriel had pointed out to her, she knocked a few times on her barrel in warning, and pried the top open with her sword. She lost her balance as soon as Thorin spilled out into the water, nearly falling on top of him as the chill of the river sapped her strength. 

She waved off his questions about her wellbeing, teeth chattering too thoroughly to speak as she swam over to the other barrels and pushed them to the bank. It took Thorin’s burning gaze, sweeping over the river in panic, to remind her she still had her ring on. 

When the last barrel was on the bank, and she could focus on something other than keeping afloat, she went to pull off the ring. It was harder than usual, as if the cold had swelled her finger. Part of her just wanted to leave it on, knowing that once its magic fled, the cold would become unbearable. If she kept putting it on and taking it off, it might be easier to keep it on forever. 

“Bella,” Thorin’s voice barked, followed by the muffled sounds of her Company answering in alarm. 

She took a deep breath, and finally managed to edge it off her finger.

“Over here,” she called, just as the strength in her knees gave out and her vision blurred. It was the same sensation of vertigo she’d felt when she’d taken it off in front of Thorin, but combined with the chill of the river and her aching limbs, it must have been too much. 

Large hands gripped her shoulders, cupped her cheeks, turned her face up to see lovely, pale blue eyes. 

“I’m all right,” she mumbled, letting Thorin pull her into him as he relaxed back onto the bank. 

“You are trembling.”

“I did just spend three hours in a cold river,” she tried to say sharply, but her voice was too weak to sound anything other than tired. 

Thorin shuddered and kissed her temple, her cheek. “You will be the death of me, Bella Baggins.”

“Well, yes,” she chuckled, though it sounded more like a choking cough, “if I have anything so say about it.”

Thorin didn’t laugh, but tightened his grip at the sound of Dwalin breaking through his barrel with a roar. 

“Will you stop fondling our burglar for five minutes, man, and help me?” he growled, wobbling on his feet, face a strange shade of red, as he stumbled over to start releasing the rest of the Company. 

“Your subjects are not very respectful,” she said through chattering teeth, pushing up off Thorin’s chest and taking off her sodden coat so her dress might dry faster. 

“And you are a hypocrite.” He shrugged off his coat as well, setting them both aside to dry as he trudged up to help Dwalin. 

Bella tried to get up, but both dwarves shot her murderous looks as soon as she so much twitched upright. 

Kíli was the next out of his barrel, stumbling and looking rather green as he blinked himself to awareness. “I never thought I’d be so happy to see that scowl,” he said with a crooked grin, trudging over and falling to her side. He draped his mostly dry coat over her shaking form and let his head hang between his knees. “Oh, Mahal, save me.”

“If you throw up on my feet, your Mahal will not be able to save you soon enough,” she grumbled, rubbing a trembling hand against his back.

“What would I do without your unending support?”

“Die of agonizing boredom, I’d expect.”

Her pride still flailing somewhere in the river, she scooted close and forced him to wrap an arm around her shoulder, his slightly damp warmth as welcome as a roaring fire after the chill of the river. 

Kíli chuckled and hugged her, rubbing hands over her arms as she shivered. “How tender of you. I feel so aflutter with affection.”

“Don’t get used to it,” she muttered, finding it hard to be angry with him when his body heat was the only thing keep her from biting off her own tongue. 

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” His laughter faded, and they both watched the others fall out onto the bank in varying states of disarray. Poor Ori only made it two steps before losing his last meal all over the pebbled beach. 

“Bella,” Kíli murmured, voice low and more solemn than usual, “how did you—”

“I would suggest not asking me anything you don’t want the others to overhear until we are somewhere safe.” She huddled a bit closer to him and whispered under Glóin’s dramatic groaning, “I don’t know what that note says, but I’m pretty sure it will answer any questions you might want to ask me.”

Kíli huffed, shooting his brother and Thorin a wary look as the former tumbled out onto the bank with a string of curses which might have made even Dwalin blush. “You’re right. As usual.”

“The sooner you learn this, Kíli, my dear, the easier your life will be.”

He snorted. “Right. Especially now it’s official.”

She tensed, gave him a sharp look. “Now _what_ is official?”

“You know,” he gestured toward Thorin, currently helping Fíli up with an indulgent smile as the young dwarf swayed and tripped, needing to grab his uncle for support.

“No, I certainly do not.”

“Oh, well,” Kíli coughed, trying to move away from her while still rubbing her arms, “I just figured you and Thorin might have talked about, um—”

It must have been the cold slowing her mind, because the minute she did realize what he was talking about, her blush was like a wildfire over her face. “Kíli, so help me,” she muttered, “if you finish that thought, I will hold you down and shave off your eyebrows.”

He laughed nervously and nodded. “Right. Understood.”

“Good boy.”

“Do not treat my nephew like a dog,” Thorin said as he walked over, making Kíli jump. 

Bella scowled. “I will treat any son of Durin however I like, thank you, and you will be happy for it.”

His mouth twitched as Fíli slumped next to Bella and laid down on the bank, groaning. “I feel like death shaken over ice.”

“You all right?” Thorin asked Kíli, crouching down in front of them. 

“Under the tender ministrations of fair Miss Baggins— _ow,_ ” he yelped as Bella pinched his side. 

“He’s fine.”

Thorin smiled and looked her over, eyes going tight. 

“As am I,” she sighed affectionately, “you great, big—”

A hoarse cry pierced the silence of the river bank, making all of them, even Glóin, go absolutely still. At the snarling that followed soon after, a harsh, bloodthirsty snarling which was intimately familiar, Bella’s heart leapt into her throat. _Out of the frying pan_ —

“Orcs,” Dwalin thundered, snatching up his axes and hauling Ori to his feet. 

“How’d they find us?” Bofur called, scrambling for his own weapons as the rest of the Company followed suit. In the far, far distance, another horn sounded, this one making Thorin growl in frustration. 

_And that would be the elves,_ Bella thought in relief. She’d rather get dragged back to the Woodland Realm than get caught in an orc trap. 

Her mind seized on the image of burning blue eyes, on a thick, iron-fletched arrow in darkest black. 

Kíli practically picked Bella up as Thorin went for his sword and Fíli jumped to his feet. 

“Head for the cover of trees,” Thorin said in a low command. “Keep your voices down and try not to bring the elves down on our heads as well.”

Kíli had her by the arm before she realized her coat was still sitting on a rock to dry—the ring in its pocket. 

“Bella,” Kíli shouted in alarm as she twisted in his grip and lunged back for her coat.

She couldn’t leave the ring. Not after all of this. It had saved her life so many times already, she would be stupid to lose something so precious—

Thorin was shrugging on his own as he handed it to her, eyes narrowing at whatever he found on her face. “Fíli, Kíli, do not leave her side.”

Her panic faded somewhat as she jerked on her coat and slipped her hand into her pocket, running her fingers along the warmth of the ring. “I don’t need to be babied.” Somewhere in the back of her mind, she registered that the coat was her mother’s, and that should have counted more than any ring, no matter how powerful.

“Just cooperate for once. You might like how it feels,” Thorin said under his breath as he jogged forward into the forest, away from the direction of the snarling. 

Her shoulder began to throb, or she might have said something sharp in return. 

“You heard the king,” Kíli said, getting behind her and shooing her along.

She ground her teeth, but hurried forward, not wanting to be lost in the tide as the Company fled into the forest, again. At least the running solved the cold, though her chest was quickly burning something fierce. The ground warped under her feet with roots and rocks, and she only just managed to keep upright. The moon was high in the sky, thankfully, and the forest here was sparse enough to see fairly well. A few of the dwarves stumbled, their legs still unsteady after the barrel ride down the river and their heavy boots. 

The trees whipped past, a few catching her cheeks as she sprinted forward as fast as she could. But all of them were too slow to recover from the river, and the first warg rider broke through the bushes behind them after only a few minutes pursuit. 

Dwalin downed the beast with a quick chop to its head, Thorin spearing through the orc on its back soon after. More wargs converged on them, a few circling forward and trying to pen them in. Kíli picked off three with his arrows while Fíli threw knives, both of them moving around Bella constantly as she held up her sword with shaking hands. 

The sounds of fighting and the sick squelch of blood nearly overwhelmed her, just as they had in the goblin tunnels, only this time she was even more tired. Her legs shook and fear pulsed over her eyes like a veil. Another orc down, and then another. She watched her dwarves fight, but saw they were still getting their bearings. It was all happening so fast, and though her body was warm, her shoulder ached, her mind was still struggling to keep up. 

It was this, she thought, which made her see the arrow too late. 

She was staring out from between Kíli and Fíli, into the moonlit forest, as a figure sheathed in darkness detached from the trees. The same orc from before—worm pale, she saw now, with sheets of metal jutting from his face and chest. His eyes glowed with malice as they settled on the figure in front of her, and for a moment, she thought they were blue—just like Azog. 

Her mind split, as if her memory of Fíli being shot in the caves outside Rivendell had circled forward to the present. This time Kíli was the one with his back turned, and for some reason, whether she was more aware now of the dangers of battle, or more tired, or perhaps she was simply farther away and couldn’t get to him fast enough, she didn’t react in time. 

The arrow flew, she opened her mouth to warn Kíli, but it was too late. 

It hit the side of his leg with an audible thunk, Kíli’s shout drowned by her own, and he crumpled. 

With an eerie calm, she saw the warg lunge for him as its rider dismounted and engaged Nori before sprinting off into the forest. She leapt forward and sliced up her blade, the metal glowing blue in the dim light of the forest, and jammed the creature up through its throat as it came down on top of her. 

She fell with its jaws inches from her head, narrowly managing to roll out from under it before it crushed her. Her shoulder wrenched painfully as she pulled out her sword and she swallowed a gasp, still throbbing, still aching. Black blood gushed over her hands, but she ignored it and stumbled back.

Maybe it wasn’t the same. It couldn’t be the same arrow. 

“Kíli,” she choked, crawling over to him as the sounds of fighting swarmed around her.

“ _Fine_ ,” he said in a mangled voice, holding his leg up. “Just an—arrow.”

Relief washed through her as she knelt beside him. Maybe her mind was just inventing fear where there was nothing—

Her eyes fell on the black arrow sprouting from his leg, and her shoulder rioted. Darkness crowded at the edges of her vision as she bent forward, as if pulled to the inky blackness she knew was crawling up Kíli’s leg. Her pulse doubled as her blood burned cold, and that voiceless sound shrieked into the back of her mind. 

_Thief_ , it whispered. _Thief, thief, THIEF—_

“Kíli, Bella,” Fíli said sharply, the sounds of the battle fading. Another thud and slick reverberation went through the ground. 

“Kíli’s shot,” she said through gritted teeth, clutching her left arm to her chest, afraid it might up and detach if she didn’t hold it. Her entire body was pulsing, pulsing, like there was another heart beating in her—in her leg.

“I’m all—” Kíli broke off with a cry of agony as the pain redoubled in her shoulder and then again in her leg. 

She nearly blacked out as quick hands propped her up. 

“Bella, lass,” Bofur mumbled into her ear, “where’d you get hit?”

She shook her head, trying to nod toward the arrow, voice wrapped up in not screaming. 

“What—” Thorin’s voice cracked as he saw Kíli, and the arrow, a hard, ragged noise breaking through his chest.

Bella opened her eyes, saw him stagger back in horror, staring down at his nephew, looking up at her. Through the pain pulsing in her leg and shoulder, she felt his dread like it was her own.

“It’s different,” Fíli said firmly, his eyes hard as he cupped a hand over Kíli’s mouth to muffle his cries. “It can’t be a Morgul-arrow.” His gaze cut to her. “You went into a fit right away.”

Óin found them then, shoving Thorin aside as he knelt. His hands moved with purpose over Kíli’s leg, cutting away fabric to reveal the shaft of the arrow. 

A wealth of black ink spread out from the wound, tendrils reaching slowly up and down into his veins. 

Óin’s expression went bleak as he cursed. 

“It’s the same, Fíli,” she managed, trying to block out the pain, knowing it was only an echo, and that whatever Kíli was feeling was so much worse—knowing because she remembered. 

Fíli shook his head, eyes wide and shining, fierce in their denial. “No. No, it can’t be.”

“You have to get the arrow out,” Thorin said, voice rough. “That’s what the wizard—” He took a raking breath and continued in a firmer tone, “Gandalf said the poisoned shards would work their way toward the heart. You have to get it out, now.”

“I am no wizard,” Óin said slowly. “I won’t be able to stop this, Thorin. The poison is in—”

“Are you a healer or not? You must be able to do _something_ ,” he said harshly, face transforming in anger. “I don’t care if you have to cut off his leg.”

“No,” Kíli choked around Fíli’s hand. “Don’t—please, you _can’t_.”

Another horn sounded in the distance, twice in quick succession. Her mind leapt for it as Thorin and Óin continued arguing, as Fíli tried to calm his brother, as Dwalin paced in the background, and the Company gathered in muted horror. 

_The elves._

“Help me up,” she choked, fumbling for Bofur’s hand. 

“Bella, you’re not well—”

“ _Help_ me.”

She stood shakily, finding one leg significantly weaker than the other. “Thorin,” she said firmly. “ _Thorin_.”

He looked at her, seeing the pain in her expression. “What happened? Are you—”

“I can feel the poison in him. I—I don’t know how, but it hasn’t spread as fast as it did with me,” she said quickly, trying to block out the voice whispering into her mind. “But it will kill him.”

Thorin’s eyes went wide as she stepped toward him, reaching for her as if on instinct. She braced herself against his chest, taking another deep breath. “There’s only one thing that might save him now.”

His gaze froze on hers, brow furrowed deep in confusion. 

“Oh, no, lass,” Balin said behind his shoulder, shaking his head with a sympathetic grimace. “No.”

She ignored him, keeping her eyes on Thorin as clarity slid into his expression. “Bella—”

“Do you trust me?” she said, her voice breaking.

“You can’t be serious,” Dwalin said with a growl. “You _can’t._ ”

“They’ll drag us back into those dungeons,” Balin added more softly. “Elrond was a friend of Gandalf’s. There’s no way one of them would agree—”

Bella stepped closer to Thorin, pitching her voice low and speaking only to him. “Do you _trust_ me?”

His jaw clenched as disbelief flashed over his face, followed quickly by anger and a firm, unshakeable denial.

Her own rage surged up to meet his, hands clenching in his coat as she shouted, “Is your pride worth more than your nephew’s life?”

For a moment, she thought he would refuse. She thought he would prove himself so stuck in his own ways that he would risk the life of his kin, of a boy he considered as close to a son as he would ever have. 

“ _Please_ ,” she said, trying to convey her desperation. “I want to save him as much as you do.”

His eyes softened, just a fraction, and he muttered, “Go, before I change my mind.”

She let out a strangled sigh as she pulled his face down to her, kissed him full on the lips. 

His hand gripped the back of her head roughly, as if he might hold her there, but then he released her. “Find somewhere to hide,” she said quickly. “If I’m not back in a few hours—”

“You will come back,” he said, the sheer command in it wiping any remaining fear from her heart.

Bella nodded, and left without another word. 

Over the Company’s cries of outrage and alarm, she sprinted into the forest toward the sound of the horn. Kíli’s anguished groans trailed after her, lodging like knives into her chest. The farther away she got, the less her leg and shoulder hurt, but she felt the second pulse still, faint and fluttering. “Hold on,” she urged under her breath, stumbling over tree roots and running as fast as she could. “Damn you, Kíli, hold on.”

She ran for what might have been an hour, or less, she couldn’t tell, heart racing and chest burning, until she caught her first sight of sleek hair and armor. Fumbling in her pocket, she put on the ring, and immediately felt that pulse strengthen and morph. The whisper grew violent, ripping into the back of her mind, but she kept running, looking for any sign of red hair. 

_Please be here. Please be here._

Elves crossed the forest in front of her, all of them looking the same, with dark hair and elegant green armor, living trees shifting through the forest. 

Until she heard Tauriel’s voice calling to her left, and she jerked around. 

The captain stood on a ledge overlooking a low dip in the forest, pointing and giving orders to her guards in elvish. 

Bella ran forward and said as low as she could, “Tauriel.”

The elf tensed, looked around with tight green eyes. “Bella,” she whispered, “what are you—”

“It’s Kíli,” she choked, bracing herself against a tree as she tried to catch her breath. “He’s—I need your help.” 

Tauriel’s lips parted, and she made a noise as if she’d been hit in the gut. 

At that moment, the elf-prince, Legolas, ran up behind her and said something in elvish, but Tauriel ignored him, walking toward Bella. 

Bella grabbed her hand, tugging her away from the rest of the elves before she slipped her ring off and fought the surge of fatigue that washed over her. 

_Thief, little thief, THIEF—_

The elf-prince scowled down at her and said, “Just what—”

“He’s been shot with a Morgul-arrow,” Bella said over him, speaking only to Tauriel. “He’ll die soon without help. I know this makes no sense, but have you heard of something called the Beckoning?”

“I—,” she said, but was cut off by her prince.

“What would you know of the Beckoning, halfling?”

Bella pulled back the neck of her dress to reveal the scar on her chest. “Two months ago I was shot by an arrow with the same poison. Elrond of Rivendell performed the Beckoning on me to save my life. If it is in your power, I ask the same for my friend.”

“A Morgul-arrow?” the elf-prince asked, face transformed into an expression of shock, and disbelief. “It cannot be.”

Bella just stared at Tauriel, who had gotten a far-off look in her eyes, stunned, and frozen. “Can you help him?”

At that, Tauriel refocused on her, lips parted as her brow furrowed. She blinked, and certainty slid into her eyes. “I will do what I can.”

Bella nearly kissed the woman right there. “He doesn’t have much time.”

Tauriel moved to follow her, before her prince grabbed her arm, and said coldly, “Tauriel, you cannot leave. The orcs linger, and we are needed back at once.”

“I must,” she shot back, voice soft, but clear. “I cannot let him die, _gwador_.”

“You will not be able to return, _gwathel_.” He hesitated, and said roughly, “Even I will not be able to convince my father to grant you clemency.”

Bella watched them, seeing the grief in his eyes, and the regret in hers, and realized the full depth of what she was asking. 

No one left the Woodland Realm without Thranduil’s permission.

“I know,” Tauriel whispered, and pressed a hand to his chest, “and I am sorry.”

The prince’s eyes shined, their cold blue softening in acceptance. He looked old then, not the snide, sneering prince he usually was. He cut his gaze to Bella. “I hope your dwarf is worth it.”

“He is,” she said without thought.

The prince merely nodded, and stepped away, nothing showing in his expression now except for the furrow in his thin brow. “I will lead the guards back. Eru light your path, _gwathel._ ”

“And yours,” Tauriel murmured as he disappeared into the forest and called the elves to him. She hesitated only a moment, before slinging her bow and turning to Bella with shining, limned eyes. “Take me to him.”

Bella should have warned her, asked her again if she was prepared to risk her home for a dwarf she’d met only weeks before, but she didn’t. She had always been selfish at heart, and right then all she could think of was Kíli lying on the forest floor, dying. 

They slipped through the wood, the moonlight casting shafts of light through the trees. Bella knew it must be close to morning by now, after her hours on the river and however long it had been since reaching the bank. She was tired and moving slowly, _too slowly_ , but Tauriel said nothing. She simply followed, silent as a shadow. 

Bella shouldn’t have been able to find the Company so easily in the dark, but the pulse in her leg was stronger the farther she went, and she knew, somehow, exactly where Kíli was. The thought sunk hooks into her mind, but she ignored them.

“Wait here,” she murmured as she came to the spot her Company had made a temporary camp. They’d managed to hide the light of their small campfire rather well, and she’d only seen it because she knew where to look. “I don’t want them shooting at you.”

Tauriel merely nodded, eyes sharp and staring forward. 

Bella picked her way down to the sound of rustling and murmuring, and the heavy, labored breathing of someone in pain. Wincing as the pulse shuddered in her leg, she saw Óin and Fíli bent over Kíli, Thorin standing over them all like a silent sentinel. 

It was Balin who saw her first, jerking upright where he was sitting with Dwalin and Nori. “Lass,” he muttered. “We were starting to worry.”

Movement flickered through the Company as they all turned to her. 

“Weapons sheathed, all of you,” she said as forcefully as she could, hating that she had to doubt them. 

Thorin started toward her only to freeze. She couldn’t see his face in the shadow of the campfire, but she knew his expression was flat, and rigid.

“I mean you no harm,” Tauriel said slowly behind her, appearing out of the darkness like another shaft of moonlight. “I swear.”

No one said anything for a tense moment. Bella tried to read the dwarves’ expressions or body language, but the darkness had grown thick since she left them. 

It was Fíli who broke the silence, calling in a choked voice, “Are you going to save my brother’s life, elf?”

Bella’s jaw clenched at the accusation, but her heart broke at the sound of his voice. He’d been crying. 

“I hope so,” Tauriel murmured. 

“What would Thranduil’s Captain of the Guard stand to gain from this?” Thorin asked, his voice hard. 

“Thorin,” she started, not knowing what else she could say to convince him. She would tell him the whole bleeding thing if he just—

Kíli gave out a small, shuddering whimper, and Tauriel’s eyes flashed to him. In the silence that followed, the air grew taut with the focus that bled from the elf’s gaze, all of them frozen in a look which went beyond their suspicion and fear, beyond time itself. 

Whatever objections Thorin, or the rest of the Company had, they died in that look. 

He stepped back, and Tauriel moved forward without asking permission, setting down next to Óin and Fíli. “How long has been like this?”

Bella moved forward, and the closer she got, the worse the pain in her leg and shoulder became. She bit off her own cry as Kíli shifted, and she saw him fully in the light of the fire. 

His skin was clammy and pale, his eyes covered in milky film. His mouth opened and closed, as if he were drowning, shifting restlessly against the ground. He looked so different from his normal self, grinning and cheeky and so wonderfully, vividly alive, that a part of her already mourned his loss.

She might have crumpled then, if not for Thorin’s firm grip on her shoulders, pulling her back into his chest, anchoring her. Her hands came up over his arms where they wrapped around the front of her chest, gripping him so tight her nails dug into his skin. He breathed in her hair, and she felt him shudder. 

_Hold on. Please, hold on._

Tauriel worked, taking the herbs—athelas, she called the kingsfoil Óin had found—and smashing them into a paste. She murmured under her breath, words in elvish, maybe, or a language older than that. Though she didn’t understand them, Bella recognized them as the same ones Elrond had spoken to her in her dream. They pulled on her, and the pain lessened, though the scar throbbed on her shoulder still, and would, until the end of her days. 

But there was something wrong. The light flickering in Bella’s chest was too weak, and that pulsing whisper in the back of her mind only seemed to laugh. Tauriel’s voice faltered, and she looked up to Kíli’s face, still wrenched in pain, his chest still heaving with breath. 

She shook her head. “This—is beyond my skill to heal.”

“ _No_ ,” Fíli choked, tears now streaming fully down his cheeks. “Please, you have to do something. There has to be _something_ you can do.”

Bella felt Thorin’s grip tighten, felt his chest hitch and his heartbeat thud in her ears as if it were her own. 

She did not believe in gods, not in the same way that her dwarves believed in their Maker. Hobbits held no beliefs beyond the working of stream and soil, the bright green things which grew and thrived under their hands. They were a people of simple pleasures, and not for them was the gaze of gods or the grander workings of Middle-earth. Her mother had been queer indeed, to put her faith in the spirits of the old world, to whisper hopes to the sun and wish for an answer. 

But staring at Kíli’s pale face, watching Fíli plead with an elf to save his brother’s life, feeling Thorin’s mouth move in a silent prayer against her hair, she wished she did, if only to give meaning to the deep chasm yawning in her chest. 

Because what was the point of his death without a god to receive him in the afterlife? What was the _point?_

Tauriel stilled, pressed a hand gently to Kíli’s chest, and Bella hated the tenderness in it. 

“I am sorry,” the elf murmured, and she felt Thorin’s anger rise in the tensing of his hands, felt her own grief answer, about to swallow her whole—before Tauriel straightened on her knees, lowered her head over Kíli’s form, and began to chant again.

Bella felt the difference immediately. Her shoulder fractured and shuddered as the pain in her leg vanished. The darkness held within her scar writhed and shook, burying deep down inside of her as Tauriel’s words conjured a brilliant light from some vast distance. She knew, somehow, that the light was imagined, that none of the dwarves would be able to see it. But to Bella, and Kíli, now blinking up and staring with focus at Tauriel, the forest blazed in brilliance. The elf glowed with a lovely, radiant white light. It washed against the poison in Kíli’s leg, burning it all save for a single mote of black where the arrow pierced his skin. Her voice sounded like music, as if she were singing an ancient song and the air itself was accompanying her. It made Bella feel small, but not weak, bolstered by the reassurance that something far bigger than her understanding was at work.

Tauriel might have chanted for a minute, or for hours, but eventually the light dimmed, and she let out a deep exhale as the last of her song faded. 

Kíli’s breathing slowed, the film gone from his eyes, once again a clear, warm brown. His skin looked flushed, but still clammy, though Bella could tell that he would again feel warm to the touch. 

Fíli let out a shaking cry, pressed a hand to his brother’s chest, to his face. “Is he—?”

“He will live,” Tauriel murmured, her voice soft, diminished, as tired as Bella had ever heard an elf sound.

Thorin shuddered around her, his head coming to rest in the crook of her neck. Something wet seeped into her skin, and she hugged his arms tighter as tears slipped over her shoulder. He let himself cry for just a moment, and then he had straightened and turned his face away from the fire, no doubt replacing his hard expression.

“I heard what the Lord Elrond did for our Bella, here,” Óin said with a tight voice, looking at Tauriel with a furrowed brow that might have held anger, or disbelief, “but I had not thought to see elvish medicine at work with my own eyes.”

“He will be weak for a few days,” she said in a calm, purposeful voice. “You will need to ensure that his wound does not—”

“Tauriel.”

All of them froze at Kíli’s voice.

The elf turned her head slowly and murmured, “Lie still.”

“You cannot be her,” he whispered, hand inching for the elf’s. “She is far away among the stars…”

Bella felt at once like an intruder, fighting the urge to look away. Whatever doubts she’d had about Kíli’s feelings, they fled with his hesitant touch, and the smile pulling at his lips. 

Kíli didn’t speak again, and his eyes closed slowly. 

“He’s sleeping, lad,” Óin said as Fíli tensed. 

Tauriel seemed frozen next to Kíli, one finger curling around his. The gesture cut through Bella with its intimacy, though it was barely more than a touch.

Dwalin stepped forward, his voice rough as he said, “We need to move. The orcs might return, and the sooner we’re out of this damn forest, the better.”

Bella bristled—was he really so _stupid_ as to insult the woman who’d just saved Kíli?

Thorin eased away from her, hands gripping her shoulders as if to hold her back. “Aye. We’ve lingered too long already.”

“I’ll bind his wound,” Óin said purposefully, waving a quick hand to the surrounding dwarves. “We’ll need a litter to carry him until he wakes. Get to it, then. Enough gawping.” The old dwarf was nothing if not practical, and at that moment, she blessed him for it. 

Tauriel rose, turning away from Kíli slowly, as if it were physically painful. Bella caught the tear tracks down her cheeks as she stepped away into the forest. 

Thorin started to pull her back as she went to follow, until Bella muttered, “I need to talk to her. I won’t go far.”

Before he could so much as argue, she shrugged out of his grip, and didn’t look to see his reaction. She felt hollow, empty, as if looking at anyone too long might brake the fragile peace which had settled over the forest. As if saving Kíli had been a fluke, a jest, and the world was just waiting to correct itself if she so much as locked eyes with Thorin or Fíli, or any of her Company. It felt like a tipping of the scale. She’d brushed death too often over the past few months for it not to know her face, and if she slipped, just for a moment, it would finally take what it was owed. 

The cold hit her at once, but she ignored it as she jogged forward. “Tauriel, wait.”

The elf stopped a good distance from the Company, facing away and standing perfectly still. 

“What did you do?”

It took her a long time, but Tauriel murmured, “He had passed too far into the shadow.” Her face turned ever so slightly, her elegant profile cast in moonlight and darkness. “Only the light of the Eldar might have called his spirit back.”

“What does that mean?”

Tauriel looked at her then, a sad smile on her lips. “I do not know.”

Bella knew of elves only from her stories, from Gandalf’s wild tales of a land beyond the sea, and a light which had been doused and rekindled, and carried by the immortal beings of this world. If this same light had been used to save Kíli, a dwarf, a person so removed from that light and made from stone and earth… 

What had Tauriel given to reach him, and what had Kíli left behind to come back?

The elf jumped slightly when Bella hugged her round her waist. “Thank you,” she murmured. “I know it wasn’t for me, but I—I don’t know what I would have done if he’d…”

It had been only four months since setting out from the Shire. Four months, and yet she could not have imagined a life without Kíli in it. He was family, the concept foreign enough to her after so long living without anyone except Gandalf, that it had taken his near death to hammer it into her stubborn mind. This Company was her family. She could not lose any of them. _Never again._

Tauriel held her, and pressed a gentle hand to the back of her head. “He is lucky to have you in his life, Bella. Watch over him for me, if you can.”

Bella pulled back with a frown. “You won’t stay until he wakes?” Even as she asked, she knew it was impossible. Her dwarves might be grateful, but they would never travel with her, not so close to Erebor. Tauriel was still an elf, no matter what she’d done, or how Kíli might feel about her. She wondered if they would even think beyond Tauriel’s help, if any of them might be able to guess what had passed between them. _They’ll probably pretend it never happened_ , she thought with a scowl.

“I think it would be better not to,” she murmured. She looked to the forest again, brow knitted in longing. 

“Where will you go?”

“To Lake-town, and then…” She shook her head. “I know not.”

“I still have to find you a wizard,” Bella muttered, throat tight with guilt. 

Tauriel smiled, kneeling to cup Bella’s face affectionately. It was a motherly gesture, though the elf seemed so young—hitting the place in her heart where memories of her own mother lingered beside a warm fireplace and a comfortable chair. 

“Then perhaps I will tarry for a while,” she said, “though I cannot remain in the Greenwood. Thranduil will banish me the moment he hears of my departure.”

“Tauriel—”

“I chose this, friend.” She pressed a kiss to Bella’s brow, and stood, looking very much like the ageless, graceless beings from her childhood imaginings. How strange, to think her a person with feelings no more rare or special than a hobbit’s. “I do not think this will be the last time we meet, Bella. I hope it is not,” she added, and left without a sound.

Bella watched her fade into the moonlight and shadow, shoring up her heart to return to what she knew would be a cold reception. She turned back to the Company, and pressed a hand to her shoulder as the phantom pain rippled in a dark reminder. Silently, she agreed with Dwalin—the sooner she left this forest, the better. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Waves hand vaguely at Tolkien's magic system and greater cosmological framework*


	28. Stars Are the Only Thing We Share

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Atlas Hands" by Benjamin Francis Leftwich](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rbdd4xp-Oo&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-&index=28)

Dawn broke over the hills to the east, and as the Company stepped from the last of the trees and into the sparse flatland sitting between Mirkwood and the Long Lake, Thorin saw with his own eyes, for the second time in over one hundred and fifty years, the solitary peak of the Lonely Mountain. 

His first thought, standing in the pale light of morning, tired, ragged, body aching with a fatigue which sank deeper than his bones, was that it looked smaller than he remembered. The mountain of his youth had loomed so large over his life, a shadow cast over all his days since, that he supposed it would never measure up to his imagining. It looked close enough to touch, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to feel joy, or celebration. 

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Kíli writhing in pain. 

So close. He had been so close to losing him. 

He had known the risks of bringing his nephews with him. He had thought himself ready, as ready as one could ever be to lose those dear to them. Over nearly two centuries of war and ruin, he had seen so much death, he thought himself better prepared for the likelihood. 

Then Bella had nearly died, and any acceptance he’d felt in the certainty that some of his Company might not survive their quest had crumbled to ash and dust. 

The fear and horror, the bone-crushing _guilt_ , at watching his nephew, his kin, slowly succumb to an evil he couldn’t understand or combat, had ripped his heart in two. 

Fíli had always been more solemn, more stoic. As his heir, he had occupied a place of maturity in Thorin’s mind. He had needed to be firm, strict with Fíli in a way he’d never been with Kíli. Kíli was full of laughter and tricks, too quick to catch as he ran through the halls of Ered Luin, too easy with his smiles over a small table set with what meager food he’d been able to buy from a traveling merchant—nestled in Dwalin’s laugh and bouncing at the prospect of a meal, any meal, before they’d returned to the home of their cousins in the Blue Mountains. He had hung head-first from banisters and taken up the bow as a jest, and then to annoy his entire family when he realized he had a talent for it. He had cut holes in his mother’s skirts and cried when he stubbed his toe, pulled doe eyes when he didn’t get his way, and was babied to within an inch of his life long-past when he should have been steered with a firm hand. 

Seeing Kíli take that arrow was seeing Frerin fall with an axe between his shoulder blades at Azanulbizar all over again. 

Thorin’s eyes slid, as they had over the past few hours’ walking, to where Kíli lay on a stretcher. He slept still. Óin claimed that it was only natural for him to sleep off the effects of the injury—and whatever the elf had done to heal him. He might take a day or two to wake. Bella had taken three. 

Fíli had only looked away from his brother once in the silent, wary march out of the forest, to grab Bella and hug her. It was the only interaction she’d had with any of them since the elf had vanished into the forest, no doubt to return to her king with news that they were weak and crippled after the orc attack. But no elves had come after them, and even if they had, Thorin could not bring himself to regret Bella’s actions. Kíli was alive because of her. 

Perhaps it was this that made him hold his tongue when questions about how Bella had known the captain would help rose from the mire of his thoughts. She had been sure—he had seen it in her eyes—that this Tauriel would save Kíli. And the look which passed between them… It was too much to contemplate. Not with the shadow of the Mountain before them and the fog of Mirkwood behind. They were penned in between two foes of different make, and he had not the energy to care. It was a question for later. When he could get Bella alone. When Kíli awoke. When Erebor was his once more. 

They stopped at the edge of the river, looking out over the still, black surface of the lake as they ate what little Bella had smuggled into their barrels for them. 

Thorin watched her out of the corner of his eye, wanting to go over and sit with her, but feeling…

He didn’t rightly know how he felt. 

Angry and frustrated beyond belief that she would think to ask an _elf_ for help. Her naivety would get them all into trouble one day, he knew it. She knew less of the treachery of elves than he, and he _knew_ , in his heart of hearts, that Thranduil would not let them leave so easily once he found out they’d slipped from his grasp. 

Yet he was grateful, so unbelievably grateful to her for doing what his pride would never have been able to let him do. She had saved his nephew, again, when he could not. He was concerned and terrified, because whatever evils lingered in the injury in her shoulder were now pulsing within his kin. 

She looked haggard, the brief color returned to her after three days of rest in the Woodland Realm gone in her shaking, hunched frame. Kíli would suffer from the same ills, the same clawing darkness which had crept into her and wrapped black tendrils around her expression the longer they stayed within Mirkwood’s corruption.

He wanted to go to her, to pull her into his arms and ignore the building thought in the back of his mind that something had changed between them, and not for the better. She was distant, a bleekness hovering in her gaze which made him afraid. 

And she had not made any move to speak to him since she’d spoken to the elf. 

Had she changed her mind? Had his reluctance to trust her, despite everything telling him she was wrong, finally broken her faith in him?

They were a fool’s preoccupations—there would be time to talk, and thinking it through now would only lead to madness. He tried to ignore them as they gathered to discuss how best to proceed.

“I’m not sure Lake-town will be friendly to us,” Balin muttered, scowling at the dark outline of the city sitting in the middle of the lake. “It’s been some time since I last passed through Esgaroth, and while Dáin might have made the Iron Hills profitable in the last few decades, there’s no love between the humans and our kin.”

Thorin grimaced. Smaug desolated more than just Erebor in his greed for their gold. Dale had been the first hit with dragon fire, and the humans here most likely still blamed his people for their loss. 

“We need supplies.” He looked to Kíli, sleeping under Óin’s watchful eye. “And a place to rest.”

“There’s a boat approaching,” Bella said softly, sitting at the edge of the group and staring out across the lake. 

They all turned, and Thorin’s chest tightened. Sure enough, through the mist came a flat skiff, a single, tall figure standing at the prow. 

Dwalin met his gaze, an unspoken question passing between them. One man on a boat was a fight even they could win in their condition, and he saw the appeal. The fewer who knew of them, the better, especially this close to the mountain. But he balked at killing an innocent fisherman just for the bad luck of spotting them in his early morning duties. 

He shook his head, cast a sharp look over his Company as the man pulled into shouting distance. They would talk, and perhaps learn what kind of reception awaited them in the descendants of Dale. 

“Hail, stranger,” Thorin called, raising a hand in greeting. It was hard to make much out of his features in the pale light, but he looked lean, with shoulder-length brown hair and worn clothes. Over his back was slung a bow, and Thorin recognized the indent of a knife at his waist.

Perhaps more than a simple fisherman, then. Though, there had been a time when Thorin was nothing more than a blacksmith, and the steel he carried was finer than most armies of Men could claim. 

“Hail,” the man called back as he dug his pole into the shore and came to a stop a few yards from the bank. “But it is I who might call you and your company, stranger, dwarf. I know these waters as if they were my own blood, and dwarves are a rare sight in these trying times.”

Thorin felt anger curl into his throat at the unspoken accusation. 

Balin seemed to sense his temper rising, and said, “Aye, that they are, for all of us.”

“I can see that.” The human gestured to them. “You are armed for battle.”

“Not for battle, sir, but for protection,” Balin said. 

“Protection against what? Your weapons are far meaner than those needed to pick off wildlife and brigands.”

“Do you question every soul you meet as to the purpose of their belongings?” Thorin asked sharply.

The Company shifted, hearing the anger in his voice. 

“I told you dwarves are not common in these parts.” The human paused, his voice growing cold. “There is a reason. Your people bring trouble, and what little trust the people of Lake-town once had for your kind has been wasted by those who came before.”

Before Thorin could rise to meet the insult, Bella stood and said firmly, “I take offense at your claim, sir.”

The human looked at her, clearly surprised. “My apologies, miss. I hadn’t realized you were not a dwarf.”

“Clearly.” She braced hands on her hips, and Thorin almost smiled at the look he knew had come upon her face. “But my offense stands. Especially since I am sure that you have not met anyone like me to make such a claim as to the quality of my trust.”

“I have not,” the human conceded. “Indeed, I don’t think I knew your people existed.”

“That surprises me not at all.”

Dwalin snorted, and even Balin shook his head with the beginnings of a grin. 

“But as I am in a generous mood this morning,” she continued, “I would overlook it in exchange for passage over the lake.”

Thorin tensed, fighting the urge to pull her back and clap a hand over her mouth. The human was clearly not interested in helping them. Beorn had been lucky, and they’d had the wizard to handle an unwelcome host. 

“Would you? Very kind, miss.” The human sounded almost amused. “Unfortunately, I cannot in good conscience offer passage without knowing your company’s business for being so near my home.”

“Well, I should think that was obvious,” Bella said sourly. 

Balin’s eyes went wide in alarm and the rest of the Company tensed. 

She _wouldn’t_ , surely. 

“We are heading to the Iron Hills, but as you can see, we ran into trouble in the wilds, and are desperately in need of supplies. Lake-town is the closest place to rest and restock for leagues.”

In what would likely become a frequent occurrence in his life, he thanked Mahal, Gandalf, the bleeding stars and fate for sending him such a clever woman to grace his quest.

“The Iron Hills?” The human sounded doubtful. 

“To the dwarven settlement there. We took work in the Grey Mountains a few years ago, but were forced south by the desolation. It has become a dark place in recent years, some even say that orcs roam the hills.” She shuddered, and Thorin had to admire her commitment. “That’s why we are so heavily armed, sir. What you see is almost the last of our wealth, worn in the weapons on our backs. The Iron Hills might be far, but we have no other choice than to seek out work there, so we might feed ourselves. And as you say,” her voice grew cold, “the realms of Man are no place for a dwarf to seek work for too long without drawing suspicion.”

Thorin stared at the back of her head, a sense of fierce affection burning through him. She spoke of their plight—true, for all that it was stretched—as if it were her own. 

“You speak as though you were one of them,” the human said, his voice suspicious still. 

“I am.” She gestured back at Thorin, and gave him a pointed, cautionary look, threaded with not a little wariness. “That is my husband, those are my nephews, and these are my cousins. We are family, sir.”

Thorin stood very still, long-practiced at keeping his expression clear when he needed to. She was playing a part. There was nothing more to it than that. Hearing her say such a thing out loud, however, when he had kept that dream locked tight behind his lips for fear of scaring her away, made it difficult to breathe. 

“Your husband,” the human repeated, turning his sharp eyes to Thorin. 

“Aye,” he said, praising Mahal that his voice did not crack. 

The human merely nodded his head, as if accepting the fact without question.

“One of our number is injured and we are, all of us, weary,” Bella said, and if she thought anything of the human’s quick acceptance, it did not show in her steady voice. “I realize you have your reasons for distrusting us, but I would ask for your aid in getting us to Lake-town despite it. We have some coin, if that might assuage your fears, and we swear that we mean you and your people no ill will or harm. We’re just trying to get home.”

They all stood in silence as the human studied them, the Company shifting restlessly, looking from Thorin, to Bella, to the human.

_Home_. The strength of her conviction when she said it stirred hope inside him. 

“I can get you to Lake-town,” the human finally said, “and would offer you my home for the evening. If you need more than a day to resupply, I would help you find lodging.”

Bella sagged, relief obvious in her voice when she said, “Thank you, sir. I will not betray your trust in me.”

“I hope you won’t, madam.” The human raised his pole and steered his boat to shore, allowing them all on as he watched closely. “My name is Bard.”

“Bella,” she said as Thorin walked up behind her and helped her onto the boat before this Bard could offer. 

“Thorin,” he said slowly, inclining his head as the rest of the Company offered their own names, and keeping her hand in his even when they sat and Bard began to row them toward Lake-town.

Balin struck up a conversation with the man about the state of affairs in Lake-town, more to distract, Thorin thought, than because he was interested, and the Company settled somewhat. All of them alternated between staring unashamedly at Bella and Thorin and very conspicuously _not_ staring at them. _No better than chittering hens, the lot_ , he thought with a rueful smile. Fíli even took his eyes away from his brother, lying in the center of the boat, to give Thorin a small smile. He might have bristled, but there was no teasing in his nephew’s bloodshot eyes, only a grim kind of happiness. 

“Obnoxious boy,” Bella whispered at his side.

His mouth twitched, but his humor was short lived as she shivered in a strong breeze. “Are you cold?”

“Of course I am. I’m still mostly damp.”

Thorin shrugged his coat off, wrapping it around her and pulling her slowly onto his lap. 

She met his gaze, almost wary, before she relaxed and turned her face into his chest, burrowing deep into his coat. He smiled, trying not to focus too much on the feeling of her pressed so closely into him. 

“How are you feeling?” he murmured, letting his chin rest on her head. He hadn’t been so caught up in his own grief to miss her pain, the tremors in her body as the elf performed her magic on Kíli.

“Ill.” She closed her eyes. “I think I’m getting sick.”

He tensed. “Because of your injury?”

“Because I spent a week sneaking around a forest on my own with little to no sleep, and then threw myself into a cold river for a few hours.” She snorted. “I’m surprised it’s taken me this long, honestly.”

He put a hand to her forehead. She did feel hot to his touch. “You should have said something.”

“I didn’t want to make a fuss until we were somewhere safe. Not with Kíli…”

He took a deep breath, cursing her continual disregard for her own wellbeing. Before he could say anything, though, she reached a hand around his chest and pressed her lips to his shoulder, causing his words to lodge in his throat. 

“I know. I’m sorry,” she murmured. 

His frustration died in the tenderness of her grip. “You cannot blame me for being concerned about my wife.”

She smiled into his tunic. Always so pleased with herself, his burglar was. “The only reason I said we were married is because I knew that if I chose anyone else, you’d throw a fit and mope. I can only put up with your foul mood for so long until I feel the urge to smack you with the nearest stick.”

He chuckled and pressed a tentative kiss to her head, indulging in feeling of holding her in his arms. There was a domestic, unguarded trust in it, seated as they were in full view of their Company and a stranger. It made him feel like something other than an exiled king, raised only for war and the long road. Something simpler. “I’m not complaining.”

She hummed in what might have been a laugh. After a few minutes, she fell asleep, her slight snoring joining the hushed conversation of their trip.

“She all right?” Dwalin asked, sitting down next to him with a grunt as they got closer to the hazy shapes of buildings and docks appearing through the early morning mist. 

“I think if I say anything else, she will wake up and hit me.”

Dwalin chuckled, eyeing Bella with a wary fondness.

“Something on your mind?” Thorin asked.

His expression tightened, and he looked out over the lake. Tension hung in his shoulders, and there was something pained about the tight clench of his hands.

Thorin had spent enough time with his _akrâgkharm_ to know when he was fighting the urge to say something. Dwalin wasn’t a verbose man, but he wasn’t prone to keeping his opinion to himself, when he had one. 

“Whatever it is, you know—”

“Yes, yes, I know,” he said under his breath. “I’m getting there.” 

Thorin tried not to smile as he watched his old friend work up the courage to say whatever it is he wanted to say. There was a clarity to Dwalin that he appreciated, a stubborn ease that usually meant he was an obvious friend or indifferent acquaintance. Watching him struggle with his thoughts reminded Thorin of a much younger dwarf, one who had spent nearly a year getting up three hours early to train simply because Thorin had started outpacing him in their joint training, not wanting to be unable to defend his prince, and because his ego would not let him be bested.

“It’s nice,” he finally muttered, looking as if the words frustrated him, “seeing you—find someone, even if she is…you know.”

Whatever Thorin had been expecting, it was not this. He blinked, suddenly feeling very awkward in his skin. They both might be nearly two centuries old, but they had never really talked about matters of the heart before. In their youth, a few traded barbs and jokes about pretty women had made up the extent of this particular area of conversation. And after Erebor, there just hadn’t been time to think about such trivial matters as love. 

“Careful,” Thorin warned, half-expecting Bella to wake up and start jabbing them both in the eye, “I might know what you mean, but I doubt our burglar would appreciate you excusing her race.”

Dwalin’s eyes flicked down to Bella. “Why do you think I waited until she was asleep to talk to you?”

Thorin had to fight his laugh. “Cunning as always, _akrâgkharm_.”

“I used to wonder if you’d ever find someone who wouldn’t put up with your bullshit,” he said, smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. “You need a firm hand, or you start to get full of yourself.”

“I’m not sure I appreciate the sentiment.”

Dwalin shrugged. “She’s good for you. It’s nice.”

His throat tightened, though he kept his gaze forward, not wanting to embarrass his old friend. “I just hope the same is true for her.”

“Bah, if there’s one thing you’re good at, it’s putting your mind to something. If you want to be good enough for her, you will be.”

They both stared out over the lake, a fond, if awkward, silence falling between them. 

“Have you ever…” Thorin started. This vulnerability was new for them, and he found himself wanting to keep it whole, not shatter it with his tactless fumbling. He cleared his throat. “Is that something you would want for yourself?”

Dwalin was silent for so long, Thorin thought he might just refuse to answer. But after a while, he muttered, “Want? Aye. I’ve wanted it.”

“But you’ve never found it.”

“ _Âzyungel?_ No. I haven’t.” He shifted, looking uncomfortable out of the corner of Thorin’s eye. “Something like it, maybe. Once. But it’s—it won’t happen.”

A distant yearning hung in Dwalin’s eyes when Thorin turned, the emotion so vivid, it took him aback. “Have you tried?”

“It’s not like that. She’s—,” he coughed, rubbing an iron-knuckled hand over his bald head, “not interested. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

“Did she tell you that?”

Dwalin gave him a nervous look. Thorin might have smiled if he knew his friend would have taken his humor in jest and not as an insult. 

“If I might offer some advice,” he said slowly, the idea of him advising anyone on romantic matters laughable at best, “don’t count yourself out until you know for sure. Trust me,” he added, frowning, “it’s never that simple.”

Dwalin’s expression tightened, as if he were trying hard to hold his breath. “Thorin—”

“I’ll ask you all to keep your heads down once we dock,” the human, Bard, said, cutting Dwalin off as he rose. He locked eyes with Thorin, an accusation in his gaze. “Not everyone is as understanding as I.”

Thorin’s jaw clenched, and he fought the urge to say something sharp in return. Soon, he would not need to tread amongst men who held power over him. He didn’t often feel like a king, nor long for its authority, but in the realms of Man and Elf, he felt the pride of his heritage more keenly than anywhere else. Either he would succeed in reclaiming his home, or he would die, and either alternative was starting to sound better than constantly having to hold himself back from insults which would stir even the most generous dwarf. 

He roused Bella, her scowl something fierce to behold, and they all followed Bard through the tangled web of docks and platforms which made up Lake-town. He couldn’t help but compare it to Dale as he watched gaunt eyes follow him through dirty squares and foul-smelling markets. 

Dale had been a nice enough place in his youth, colorful and bright, if a bit airy for his taste. He remembered it bustling and full of noise, with winding white and gold streets, multi-colored streamers flying in the swift winds off the open farmlands surrounding the Lonely Mountain. It was a place of music and laughter, of wide open skies and glittering oddities—a place of a strange magic he’d found intriguing as a boy. 

The Dalish had fallen greatly from their once colorful city, and he couldn’t help but feel sympathy for them, no matter the suspicion in their gaze. He knew what it was to remember the glory of a ruined kingdom, to hate the world for daring to continue on without them and forget what was lost. 

Bard’s home proved to be a ramshackle place, as if two houses had been smashed together and connected by whatever errant supplies they could find. Looking around the dim interior, Thorin realized it was entirely made of wood. He had to swallow his fear. The whole city would be made of it, he guessed, for nothing else might float atop water. It was a temptation to fate—building a city of kindling so close to the Lonely Mountain. 

Fíli and Dwalin carried Kíli up into a side room, led by Bard’s children, who seemed thrilled to have company, no matter that they were dwarrows. The littlest one in particular had taken a liking to Bofur’s hat, and had somehow stolen it from the hapless dwarf. Bard helped them drag cushions and blankets into a main room on the second level, quiet and steady in his gaze as he watched them all closely. 

Bella swayed on her feet in the entrance, looking as if she might insist on remaining awake before Óin took one look at her and pointed up the stairs. “I’ll not think twice about throwing you over my shoulder, lassie,” he said sourly, refusing to be cowed by Bella’s scowl. 

Thorin might have taken issue with that, if Óin hadn’t been looking at Bella like an unruly child. “Go on,” he murmured, guiding her toward the stairs. “If it helps, think of it as you taking care of Kíli.”

“You’re lucky I’m tired,” she muttered, going easily enough after a bit of grumbling.

Hiding his smile in the curls of her hair, Thorin followed after her, climbing awkwardly up the steep steps to the topmost room where Bard’s girls had made up beds for them. 

Óin all but shoved Fíli, Dwalin, and Thorin out, shouting that neither Bella nor Kíli was in any danger of dying in the next few hours, and that their brooding would only annoy him. 

Thorin found himself sitting in a box-seat window outside the room with Fíli, Dwalin mumbling something about going to find a drink.

“I thought healers were supposed to be gentle souls,” Fíli muttered, glaring at the door, through which they could hear Bella and Óin arguing. There was a slight commotion of banging furniture, Thorin and Fíli pausing to listen as Óin cursed in khuzdul and Bella told him he was acting like a belligerent buzzard, and then all went silent. 

Thorin snorted. “Not in my experience.” He got out his whetstone and knives and began to sharpen and clean them, needing something to distract his hands. 

Fíli followed suit and they settled into a companionable silence. Thorin watched his nephew out of the corner of his eye. “Do you remember the first time I showed you how to clean your daggers?”

Fíli shot him a dark look. “And I nearly chopped all my fingers off in excitement? Hard to forget, especially when mother took my weapons away for a year.”

Thorin chuckled, though he suppressed a shudder at the maelstrom he’d received from Dís when her firstborn came home with bandages all around his fingers. “I like to remind myself every now and then that you were not always the peerless warrior you are today.”

“I don’t.”

“Allow your uncle his indulgences,” he said fondly.

A smile tugged at his lips, and Fíli muttered, “You’re a sentimental old dwarf sometimes, _irakadad_.”

“Not often enough,” he said softly. _Never enough_ , he echoed in his mind. 

They lapsed into silence for a time, the gentle rasp of polished metal soothing some of Thorin’s tension, as it always had. When all this was done, he should take up his craft again, and this time he would not make simple swords and axes for humans who paid less than his talents were worth. Perhaps he would make something for his Company. The first in a long series of gifts to chip away at the debt he owed them all for joining him. He just hoped he would have time, what with all the duties he’d take on as king.

“How did you live after Frerin died?”

Thorin stilled, his eyes flashing up to find Fíli staring unfocused on the floor. 

It took him a moment to think past the hardened lump of pain in his throat. “I didn’t. Not for a long time.” He continued to smooth his whetstone over Orcrist, though the blade was as sharp as it had been when he’d found it in that troll hoard months ago, no doubt the product of elvish magic, or something equally as frustrating. “I won’t tell you that losing my brother wasn’t the hardest thing I’ve ever had to face, because it was. It was worse than losing Erebor, worse than watching my people wander aimless for over a century. Sometimes I think that I died on that battlefield with him, and I am simply living another life, or the ghost of a life.”

He took a deep breath, forced himself to keep going as he felt Fíli’s eyes fall on him. “The bond between brothers is sacred to Mahal, you know this. When he forged the Seven Fathers, he instilled in us the blood-deep love that runs through every dwarf, that connects and binds kin. Losing Frerin was like losing a limb, or going blind, except worse, because he also took part of my heart.” 

The months after Azanulbizar had become, over time, his biggest regret, more so than even his aimless wandering after news of his father’s disappearance. He had withdrawn into himself, drowned his pain in ale and the quick comforts of flesh and sport. So great was his pain and guilt that he’d pushed everyone he’d ever loved away, thinking to die an early death if only he might see his brother again—his sweet, smiling brother, who had deserved so much more than a brief life of pain and an end at the hands of a monster. 

It had been Dwalin and Dís who found him in a dirty hole somewhere, he didn’t even remember, and dragged him back to Ered Luin. They’d all but locked him in a room with them for a week, let him rage and sob and break, and until he finally began to come back to the realm of the living. 

Sometimes, he wondered why Mahal had given him so many chances, so many people stronger than he was who had stubbornly refused to stop loving him, even when he gave them more than enough reason to cut him out of their lives like a cankerous sore. 

“I will live with that pain until I die,” he murmured, meeting Fíli’s gaze. “But I _will_ live, _gultalut_ , because to do anything else would be to dishonor his memory. Mahal made us from stone so that we would endure, so endure I shall, and when I see Frerin again in my Maker’s hall, I will greet him with joy in my heart for not wasting the time I was given. Not in the least because living led me to you, and your brother.”

Thorin sheathed Orcrist and gripped the back of Fíli’s head, pressing their brows together. “Take heart, Fíli, for there is always something to live for beyond the bleak shadow of death. There is always hope for a better future.”

Fíli took a shaky breath, shook his head. “Mother never talks about him.”

Thorin leaned back, trying not to let the sharp guilt which pierced him show in his expression. Dís had learned long ego to bury her hurt down deep in order to hold everyone else up. He might be king, but she was the reason their people hadn’t fallen to despair. She was the true ruler of their people. “Your mother is made from stronger stone than you and I. She…grieves in her own way.”

“I miss her.”

“I would be worried if you didn’t.”

His nephew’s laugh was brittle. “She told me to watch over Kíli when we left, and here I’m the one blubbering.”

“I’m sorry to say that you and I are too alike, in that regard. Kíli…well. Kíli is much like your father, Mahal rest his soul. A more unflappable, light-hearted man I’ve never met.”

Fíli’s jaw clenched, blinking rapidly as his eyes shined with tears. “Thank you, Thorin.”

“Don’t thank me,” he sighed, patting Fíli on the shoulder and giving him space to collect himself. “Once again, we find ourselves indebted to our burglar.”

Fíli snorted, taking the shift in conversation with a grateful smile. “I knew she wouldn’t stop until she’d saved all three of us.”

“She is determined,” he said with a small smile.

Fíli cut him a pointed glance. “I hope you’re planning on marrying her.”

Thorin almost jumped, caught between smacking the boy over the head for being so presumptuous, and frozen in the look of frustration in his nephew’s eyes.

“Someone needs to,” Fíli said with a frown, wiping the last traces of tears from his cheeks. “She might be reluctant to accept our blood-debts now, but I wouldn’t put it past her to demand them at some point. She’s petty enough.” The hint of a smile showed at the corner of Fíli’s eyes. “I think she’d rather it be you, all things considered.”

Thorin blinked, wondering when his nephew had learned to catch him so thoroughly off guard. “I’m not so sure.”

Fíli gave him a sympathetic look which somehow still managed to tease. “Have you tried flowers?”

“Stop. Now.” He would not accept advice from his nephew on courting his fated-love. He had allowed much over the past few months, but he had to draw a line somewhere.

“All right,” Fíli mused, leaning back with a self-satisfied smile, “but I’m warning you that I’ve already decided to offer her _akrâgnana_ when all of this is done. I figured you might want to ask first.”

“Truly?” Thorin had known Fíli cared for Bella, but to offer her an honorary place of sisterhood was significant, not in the least because, to his knowledge, no member of another race had ever been offered _akrâgnana_ before. 

“You disapprove?”

“No, of course not,” he murmured, supposing he shouldn’t be surprised. Fíli and Bella had been close since the beginning of their venture. Mahal knew, _he’d_ known he wanted to marry her since Rivendell, and probably would have even before then, if he’d gotten his head out of his own ass long enough to think about it. “I’d be prepared to work for it,” he added, smiling at the prospect. 

Fíli sighed and let his head fall back against the wall. “Oh, I am. Not as much as you, probably.” A grin tugged at his lips. 

He fought the urge to shove his nephew off the window seat. “We’ll see.”

“You know her father built her mother a house?”

Thorin blinked. “As a courting gift?” Bella hadn’t spoken much about her parents, but he guessed her father had been a kind, bumbling man, more in line with what he expected a hobbit to be, not a craftsman worthy of the rather fine home Bag End was, if it was a hole in the ground made of wood. 

Fíli shrugged. “Don’t think it works the same way for hobbits.”

“If I had known a year ago that I would be so concerned with the courting behaviors of hobbits, I might have lopped my own head off,” he muttered, if only to save himself from the growing discomfort of the idea of _courting_ anyone as obstinate as Bella Baggins. She’d likely make it as difficult as she possibly could, and have a marvelous time watching him struggle. 

Fíli’s sharp laugh, a rare enough sound as his nephew was more often too solemn to indulge, finally broke the last of his patience, and he wrapped an arm around his neck before tackling the boy to the ground. 

By the time Óin stormed out of the room to scold them both, Thorin was laughing along with Fíli, feeling more at ease than he had in weeks. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year, babes! Hope you all had a lovely night <3


	29. Heart Like the Moon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["A closeness" by Dermot Kennedy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ut785pfMZM&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-&index=29)

Bella wavered in and out of consciousness for a time, surfacing from the heaviness of sleep only to blink blearily around her small room until conceding defeat. Her head pounded something fierce and her body ached and shook, as if the last four months of stress and adventure had finally caught up to her with a vengeance. 

She recognized voices and faces from time to time, sitting at the edge of the huge bed she lay in, or leaning on chairs on the opposite side of the dark, tilting room. Bofur was there, playing his various instruments or humming catches of song, smiling when he saw her wake only to laugh when she slumped down again. Dwalin sharpened his axes, the soft rasp soothing when her head felt like it was stuffed full of bees. Fíli snored, alternating between a chair in the middle of the room and lying with his face on his arms at the foot of her bed. She nudged him once, and barely got a grunt in return. Óin came and went as well, muttering under his breath as he forced her to eat thin broth and drink water, calling her various insults in dwarvish—or so she guessed. It wasn’t as if she understood what he was saying anyway.

More often than not, however, Thorin sat at her side. He held her hand, stroking small circles into her palm. His voice wavered in and out of her mind, a lovely, low rumble which gave her dreams a calm steadiness. She had never been to the sea, but she imagined it might sound similar to his voice—a gentle washing back and forth, a hum that gently beat a second rhythm into her chest. It gave her something to focus on when her mind turned toward darker places.

And so it was strange, when she awoke what must have been the hundredth time with a mighty groan, and heard not Thorin, but Balin, chuckle. 

“Has she finally awakened?” he said merrily, peering at her over a sheaf of parchment on which he was scribbling something with a rough quill.

Bella blinked a few times, vision sliding a bit as she tried to find her voice. The faint candlelight wasn’t helping much, and for a moment she forgot where she was. “Balin?”

“Oh, ho,” he laughed, setting aside his parchment and walking toward her. He pressed a hand to her forehead and grinned. “Your fever’s broken at last, though I can tell you are back in good spirits by that scowl on your face.”

“Not that good,” she mumbled, rubbing a hand against her cheek, more to remind herself what her body felt like than anything else. This would be Bard’s house, then, if the dark wood and moist stench of fish in the air were to be believed. “I feel like my insides have been scooped out and replaced with rocks.”

“A head cold will do that to you.”

“Is that what I had?”

“Presumably,” he eyed her closely, “although Óin wonders how you might have held it off for so long without any sign of illness.”

Bella met his gaze and tried not to feel angry at the unspoken accusation. “My father used to say my head ran so hot that I would only catch a cold if it were truly determined to be caught.” She looked around, and tensed. “Where’s Kíli?”

“Easy, Miss Baggins,” he placed a hand on her shoulder as she tried to rise. “You are now in the attic, while the lad sleeps in the room below. We thought it best to move you, as you seemed determined not to sleep quietly, and Kíli needs all the peace he can get. Only you could have a fiercer tongue while sleeping than awake,” he mused.

She scowled and shifted uncomfortably under the rough blankets. “I don’t recall having many conversations while I was asleep.”

“I should expect not, unless you truly believe that Bofur should—how’d you put it? ‘Stuff his floppy hat up Nori’s bum for daring to bet on your personal business.’ ”

Bella grinned, proud that she could conjure up such a nice insult while practically unconscious. “How long was I out?”

“About a day. Bit less.” He walked over to a window looking out over Lake-town, pushing back the shutters to reveal soft morning light. “Ah, yes. That would be the rising sun.”

She followed his gaze, something lurching inside her toward the light. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” Balin asked sharply as she tried to untangle herself from blankets and roll off the overlarge bed. 

“I haven’t truly seen the sun in a month,” she said, stumbling and catching the edge of a nightstand before she could fall. “Either you help me out onto the roof or I never speak to you again.”

It occurred to her that perhaps he might enjoy not speaking to her, as he certainly seemed to disapprove of most everything she did, but when she met his gaze, he arched an eyebrow at her. “I’m not sure I want to risk my king’s, or, for that matter, my prince’s, ire by letting you put yourself in such obvious danger.”

She took a deep breath, fighting the urge to cough. “Well. I suppose you’ll have to decide whose ire you fear more—theirs, or mine.”

He stared at her for a moment, before a slow grin pulled at his lips. “When you put it that way,” he said diplomatically, offering a hand to her at once. 

Bella smiled slightly as the old dwarf guided her over to the window, throwing the shutters wide and boosting her up onto the roof. The wood was slick with morning mist, but it held fast under her shaking hands. Even if the house looked old and sodden, it felt firm. The cold wind made her shiver as she settled on the little eave. “Come on, then,” she said, peering down into the room and winking at Balin. “If I can get up here feeling like a wrung out dish sponge, an old codger like you can manage.”

“I don’t know what a ‘codger’ is,” he said, taking a blanket from the bed and handing it up to her before he pulled himself up with a great heave, “but I assume it is a highly complimentary hobbit term.”

“Of course.” She watched him move with a frown—he moved rather spritely for a dwarf well over two centuries old. “Besides, when Thorin or Fíli inevitably find me out here, I can blame you for tempting me into mischief.”

He chuckled, draping the blanket over her shoulders. “I forgot what a timid thing you were when we met you, and how you have been twisted into your wicked ways by exposure to our dwarven trickery.”

She hummed a laugh, letting her eyes close to better soak up the light. It was barely dawn, but the warmth sank down into her skin and bones, just as it had when she’d climbed to the top of Mirkwood. There was a healing property in sunlight, and she had always loved it dearly. Even in the winter, when the snow was up to her waist and the wind biting, she spent as much time outside as she could. Her mother used to joke that she was blessed by the sun, and like a flower, she would turn to find the light. 

“Do hobbits love the sun?”

Bella opened one eye to stare suspiciously at Balin. “As much as anyone else. Do dwarves not?”

He shrugged. “Most would probably take it or leave it. We were made from stone, meant to live in the quiet dark of the earth.” He winked. “Or so the legends say. Obviously, we cannot escape the sun much, especially when we have no mountain under which to live.”

“Is there no natural light in Erebor?” She shivered, wrapping her blanket more tightly around herself to keep in the warmth. Buried under so much stone without so much as a window to see the sun sounded like a nightmare.

“Quite the contrary.” He smiled, eyes going distant as they moved slowly to the outline of the Lonely Mountain. “The dwarrows of old built shafts in the mountainside, all but hidden except for one moment of the day when the sun crossed overhead and shot beams of light into the kingdom below. They placed great mirrors and polished gems in the columns and bridges, to catch the light and hold it, to reflect it into the darker places where the mountain was too thick. Erebor sings with light, if one is patient enough to wait for it.” He eyed her with that too-sharp look of his, like he was weighing her against some unspoken standard. “You’ll see.”

“Here I thought the mountain would be a dark, gloomy place, for dark, gloomy old men.”

He chuckled. “One cannot live in the dark for so long without seeing the light’s value. It is a treasure, just like any other. And dwarrows love nothing better than treasure.”

“What is that—‘dwarrows’? I hear you all use it from time to time.”

“It is an attempt to correct Middle-earth’s insistence on their bad grammar.” He smiled to himself. “Dwarrow is the more accurate version of what Mahal made us, but the form has waned. Privately, I think it’s more to do with the fact that we cannot abide being lumped in with elves.” He continued over Bella’s snort. “But that is simply my humble opinion. You’ll find it pop up in some usage—a dwarrowdam being a respectful term for a dwarven woman who has birthed a child, Dwarrowdelf being the name for our greatest, and lost, kingdom of Moria. We try, in our own ways, to hold some of that back from the long passage of time, but,” sadness pulled at the corners of his eyes, “the world takes what it takes.”

“You’ve lost much,” she murmured, feeling at once young and very, very old.

“That we have, lass.” He patted her knee, reminding her keenly of Gandalf. 

The missing of that old wizard seemed to hit her in waves, frightening in its potency. She hoped he finished his business soon. The quest was drawing to a close, and there were questions she needed answered. The familiarity of his twinkling gaze always seemed to help clear out the cobwebs of her heart, even if he was sometimes more trouble than he was worth. 

“Would you like to hear a story?” Balin asked rather abruptly, pulling her from dark thoughts. “I find myself inspired by the morning light, and the joy in my heart at seeing the Lonely Mountain so near before me.”

Bella watched him, wondering what the old dwarf was angling toward. Balin had never shown much of an interest in her before she and Thorin grew close. Oh, he was kind, and seemed to find her amusing from time to time, but she hadn’t missed his doubt and suspicion over the last month or so.

“I suppose I have nothing better to do,” she mused, tucking her knees under her chin and looking out over the long black glass of the lake. 

He smiled, and began, “Dwarrows might not revere the sun like the elves, but we know power when we see it. There is no greater fire than the sun, for she brings light and heat, and life, in her own way. We know something of fire, for what is the great forge of the earth if not stone turned toward the sun? Dwarrows have always been too eager to seek fire. Erebor is only one example of many where our greed has brought down burning ruin upon our heads. Long ago, before most can remember, some dwarrows took it into their heads to earn the sun’s favor, thinking to cage her and turn her toward their forges so they might craft works of brilliance and might. Many sought to court her down with fine weapons and shields, great workings of iron and steel and gem, such as the world has not seen since, and will not see until the End of Times. But the sun would not be swayed, burning brightly in her sky, indifferent to the dwarrows who would buy her affection with treasure, only seeking to use her for their own purposes. And so the sun, as she always did, left at night, and the dwarrows went back to their mountains, and waited until the dawn to try and win her heart when her light was brightest and most beautiful. 

“There was one dwarf, however, lonely and saddened by hardship, though he was young, who spent many a night outside, staring up at the moon and telling her of his woes. One night, the moon spoke back, and he found her sympathetic and kind. She too was lonely, for though she had the stars to sit with her, they were not her own, nor did they understand the immediacy of the moon and the light it provided for the world. The stars were not meant to shine on Middle-earth, but the moon—she was set into the firmament to guide those who longed for the light through the long dark. The moon and the dwarf began to speak together, and soon they sang together, and one day, without meaning to, they fell in love. So enamored was the moon with this dwarf that she tried to find him during the day, for, though no one knew it, she and the sun were the same. Two faces of one whole—one bright and fierce and burning, the other soft and sad and kind. But try as she might, she could not find her dwarf, for he had begun to sleep during the day so he might spend as much time with her as he could when she was awake. 

“One day, consumed by her desire to see her love, the sun and moon cast herself down from the heavens and sought him out, wanting at last to end their loneliness. But she was diminished from her fall, and without the power she had left still hanging in the sky above to light the world in her absence, she faced the apathy and distrust of those dwarrows who had tried to win her love when they knew her only as the sun. For while dwarrows might seek to hoard the sun and the fire she wielded, they had no great love for the moon or her guidance, or for a woman neither bright nor lovely. The sun and moon walked the earth for days and nights unending, searching, unable to find her dwarf. And her dwarf, not knowing why his love had gone silent and still, fell into a deep sorrow. So they both lived alone upon the earth, searching, and finding nothing but silence. 

“Until one night, many, many years later, the dwarf came upon a lonely woman, set apart from society. She was cold, and hungry, and he took pity on her. He gave her a home and food to eat. He coaxed her back to life with the kindness and patience he had learned from his moon, who had listened to his woes, and offered him sympathy. Little did he know that this woman was his love, who had known him at once, but hid her face for fear that he would spurn her as well. She lived with him for seven days and seven nights, listened to him speak of the love who had abandoned him, and despaired, for though she had tried to find him, she had ruined them both in her own greed and desire. They shared stories, until, on the seventh night, the sun and moon began to sing, and the dwarf knew her for who she was. He forgave her for all, for he knew she had not meant to hurt him. They married, and made a family, and for years beyond counting, they lived in happiness. But the sun and moon were not made for a mortal life, and eventually, though he held the light of the sun in his heart, and the sympathy of the moon in his soul, the dwarf died. The sun and moon lingered, saw her children grow old, and die, and her children’s children do the same, until her grief became too much for even her to bear. An age and a day after casting herself down from the heavens, she looked up, and remembered who she truly was. The woman who had been the sun and moon died that day, and her spirit returned to the sky, ever to watch over the realm of the living, and light their way in solitude that was her burden.”

A stillness had settled over Bella as she listened, his words weaving thoughts into a tangled tapestry within her mind. Balin was not a man to hem and haw—he spoke with meaning, and intent, always. Did he think to belittle her by veiling his meaning in some children’s story?

“If you have something to say to me, Balin,” she said tightly, “I would hope you think enough of me to come right out and say it.”

He sighed deeply, smiling to himself. “Two sides of the same coin. Really.”

She waited, staring at him until he gave her a direct answer.

“I would not presume to know your heart, Miss Baggins—”

“Of course you would,” she muttered. “What else was that story for, if not to—”

“Lass,” he said with a laugh, meeting her gaze with a pointed, arched eyebrow, “if you’re going to accuse me of something, at least wait until I’ve said my piece.” He sighed, shaking his head. “You were not made for the stone, Bella. As fond as I am of you, and as much as I know you care for Thorin, ask yourself if you’re prepared for what comes with loving the King Under the Mountain.”

Her jaw clenched. Anger rose in her throat like bile, but she waited, staring out at the lake until the sun had risen fully in the sky and cast the dark waters with brushes of orange and red. 

“I’m not sure what I was made for,” she said, unable to keep a bit of outrage from her voice, “but I do know that I am not afraid of a bit of darkness. You think I’m young, and naive, born aloft on a fancy, stringing along behind you all like some errant tag-a-long with big, lovesick eyes for the first king who took a liking to me? I’ve seen enough of love and death, Balin. Maybe not as much as you, but enough. Trust that I have thought beyond the end of this venture, and what I will have to do once the rest of you have reclaimed _your_ home.”

Balin studied her, sadness coloring his gaze, and nodded. “I guess that’s all I can ask.”

Of course she knew what would happen when Thorin had reclaimed Erebor. He would become a king in full, to rule over his people and lead them into the future, with responsibilities she couldn’t hope to understand. She had no place in that, she’d known that from the start. 

It was one of the reasons she’d found it so difficult to speak of any of this to Thorin in Mirkwood, in the cells under the Woodland Realm. The end of this quest meant an end to the flickering thing in her heart. Even if she could abandon Bag End and the Shire, what would she be? The strange fourteenth member of a Company whose purpose had been fulfilled. A reminder of everything Thorin had been before he succeeded. An oddity. An outsider. An insignificant little girl who didn’t fit in. 

Always. 

The door to the room below opened with a soft creak, and Fíli murmured, “Balin, there’s food—”

“Oh dear,” Balin muttered just as Fíli shouted, loud enough that he probably woke the entire town, “Bella?”

Balin called, “She’s fine, lad. We’re out here. I could distract him, if you wanted to make a getaway,” he added with a wink.

Her mouth twitched, the only smile she could give him as the lump in her throat wouldn’t quite dislodge. 

He loved Thorin, and didn’t want to see his king hurt. She couldn’t blame him for thinking she might not have the best intentions. She had not been the kindest to Thorin, at least not in front of the rest of the Company. 

Boots pounded over the wooden floor as the shutter banged the rest of the way open. 

“Maybe later,” she muttered as Fíli stuck his head out and looked down, as if she might have jumped into the lake.

Before Fíli could drag her back into the room, she slid off the eave herself, shoving him back when he insisted on pulling her through the window. He only had a moment to chastise her himself before Thorin and Dwalin burst into the room, both of them hastily dressed with their boots barely tied and weapons held in sleep-clumsy hands. 

It might have been frustrating, if the sight of such battle-hardened warriors with their tunics bunched around their necks and tripping over their shoes wasn’t the most adorable thing she’d ever seen. Balin doubled over with laughter as Thorin all but leapt toward her. She swallowed her protests as he questioned her wellbeing, looked her over to ensure she hadn’t lost any limbs. She couldn’t admit that she wouldn’t do the same, were their situations reversed. 

When it was clear that none of them wanted to let her out of her sight now that she was awake, however, she lost patience. She was saved the hassle of shoving all four dwarves out of her room and onto their asses when Bard’s daughter, Sigrid, showed up with her clothes. 

“They’re rather protective,” the girl, though she was two feet taller than Bella and looked about twelve, murmured when they were alone, helping Bella out of her tattered dress and into the one spare she had left. 

“Like nesting geese.” Bella scowled. “And about as obvious.”

Sigrid laughed and showed her down to the main room, as Bella had been all but carried up the stairs when she arrived. Before she could even offer to help with breakfast, Fíli shoved her gently into a chair with a forceful look, threatening to sit on her if she tried to get up. Dwalin and Thorin arrived soon after, their clothes and armor now properly arranged, along with a few of the other members of the Company. Óin, Ori, and Nori were all early risers, though she noticed that Nori was yawning widely. She fought the urge to needle him about perhaps spending too much time canoodling with a certain other dwarf, as she guessed that the others might not appreciate the implication—all of them, to her knowledge had shared the same room. 

Thorin hovered, his eyes never leaving her for more than a few moments, though he seemed reluctant to talk to her about anything more significant than how she was feeling and whether she wanted more toast. He was stiff, solemn, and though he watched her, he never met her gaze longer than he could help it.

Balin’s warning pinged through her mind as she ate. The conversation was more than a bit stilted, as the Company seemed to be trying not to speak about anything which might give their real purpose in Lake-town away. Bard sat in the corner, watching all of them with a sharp, but not distrustful, eye. She met his gaze from time to time, and he offered her well wishes on regaining her health. The more that she looked around his home, the more she realized that they were placing a rather heavy burden on his family. She knew enough of the world to guess that food was scarce in these parts, money even more so, and from the pinched looks to his girls’ cheeks and the rather stiff way his eldest held himself in the corner as he worked on patching a hole in a coat so full of patches it looked almost intentional, she understood a bit of his hesitation to allow them into his home.

After she had finished eating, and the other dwarves had come down for their meal, she made her way toward Bard, ignoring the warning looks from Dwalin and Thorin. 

“I can’t help but notice you haven’t thrown us all out yet, Master Bard,” she said pleasantly.

He looked her over, his face revealing nothing. “If I’ve given you the impression of a man who holds no sympathy for the sick or injured, that was not my intention, madam.”

“No, I didn’t—” Bella frowned. “I only meant to thank you. You’ve done us a great service.”

“You spun such a tragic tale, I could not find it in my heart to deny you.” 

She met his pointed gaze. “Then I should count myself lucky we stumbled onto such a kind man.”

“You should.” He lowered his voice. “There are people in this city who would look on a company of dwarves as an ill omen.”

“Omen of what, exactly?” She tried to keep her tone clear, but it hardened despite her best efforts.

“We live in the shadow of the Lonely Mountain, halfling. Take a guess.”

Her nostrils flared. “I’ll ask you not to call me that, as I am half of nothing.”

He blinked, startled by her tone, but inclined his head. “My apologies, but I find myself wondering at the names you gave me. One rings familiar to my ears, you see, and I would rather it be a lie than the truth.”

“And if they were the truth?”

His eyes narrowed, his long face going dark. “I am not the only one who remembers the royal line of Thrór, and the ruin they brought to Dale.”

Bella’s hands clenched in her pockets, fingers wrapped tightly around the ring. “That sounds like a threat, Master Bard.”

He straightened, some of the intensity falling from his expression. Fatigue settled over his features, and he looked older than he had a moment before. Men were short-lived, she knew, and showed their age more obviously than hobbits, who only tended to live thirty or forty years longer than most humans. However old he was, however, she saw weariness and fear pull at the fine lines near his mouth, furrow in the slight wrinkle of his brow as he murmured, “I did not mean it as such.”

She said nothing, finding her tongue softened by sympathy. Bard seemed a decent enough man, if suspicious, and afraid. For someone who prided herself on her ability to lie, she saw nothing but honesty in his expression. 

“You can rest here until your…nephew is well,” he said, still watching her warily. “I have business about town, as does my eldest, Bain. Sigrid and Tilda will remain, if that is acceptable.”

“Of course,” Bella said slowly. “If we can do anything to help, we will.” She took out the pouch of coins she still had, after all this time, and handed it to him. “This is a start.”

He frowned. “I don’t need your charity.”

“It’s not charity. It’s payment.” She arched an eyebrow at him. “I promised I would repay you for your trouble on the banks of the Long Lake yesterday, and I am a hobbit of my word.”

A slight smile pulled at his lips as he took the purse, holding it gingerly, as if it might bite him. “A hobbit?”

“I told you you’ve never heard of me.”

He didn’t laugh, but he made a sound somewhere between a scoff and a snort. Bard struck her as the kind of man who’d lived too hard a life to laugh so easily. “It seems you were right.”

“Bard,” she said as he turned away, “I know I have no right to ask for your discretion—”

“I might not believe your story, Madam Bella,” he said with the ghost of a smile, “but there are people in this town I trust even less than a strange hobbit in the company of dwarves. I give you my word that I will not share who I suspect your… _husband_ is.”

Bella watched him go, feeling the eyes of her dwarves on the back of her head. The world was far larger than she’d ever imagined, and yet she was struck by how similar sadness and fear looked in strange eyes. 

She turned back to the room, walking over to Thorin where he stood with Dwalin and Glóin. “Is there a chance we endanger these people by retaking Erebor?” she whispered.

Thorin’s gaze went hard. “Did you tell—”

She cut him off with a look. “Don’t insult me, please. Bard is not a stupid man, and we’ve used your name enough that anyone who might be paying attention could put it together.”

“We don’t even know if the dragon’s alive,” Thorin said after a moment, expression tightening. 

“Right. I think that’s the problem.”

“Only way to find out is to stick our heads inside,” Dwalin said with a scowl, watching the eldest daughter, Sigrid, carry plates into their small kitchen as Ori washed and Fíli dried. 

“As the one whose head will go in first,” she muttered, “that comforts me not at all.”

Thorin’s hand pressed gently against the small of her back, just enough so that she might move away, if she wanted. The hesitation made her mouth twitch—he still tread lightly around her, after everything. 

“He worries for nothing,” Thorin said, voice going just a bit softer when she leaned into his touch, “and has no right to question what I might seek to reclaim.”

She reached around and pulled his hand into hers. “I just don’t want to bring chaos down on these people for daring to help us.”

Glóin and Dwalin shared an uneasy look, as if they hadn’t thought so far ahead. Thorin, to his credit, seemed to understand her, even if the thought angered him. “We cannot turn back now.”

“I know.” She shook her head, looked around the dark house, with creaking wood and threadbare linens, the furniture pieced together from what might have been driftwood. 

The Shire had never lacked for wealth or food. Not even during the Fell Winter of her childhood, when the snow had kept nearly all of Eriador inside for months, had they gone wanting. Such was the paranoid nature of hobbits and their plentiful world that they had stockpiled enough to last out the worst. 

She’d only recently realized how lucky she was to live without wondering where her next meal might come from, or how to pay for another coat if she ripped hers. Old Took’s beard, she’d ripped and ruined enough dresses over the years to fill both girls’ wardrobes to the brim. 

If Bard and his family lost this home, this town, they would have nothing. 

“We should leave once Kíli wakes,” she said, swallowing her discomfort. It made sense that he would still be sleeping. She’d taken three days to wake after she was shot. There was no reason to worry about him, not after what Tauriel had done. Rubbing her shoulder in distraction, she met Thorin’s gaze. “We’re putting enough strain on them already.”

His brow furrowed in understanding, and nodded. “We had decided as much last night.”

“Oh, I see, I oversleep a bit and you all—”

He tilted her head and silenced her with a kiss, smiling around her lips when she only made a noncommittal noise in response. Glóin coughed in discomfort while Dwalin merely rolled his eyes, both shuffling away to give them privacy. 

“You seem to be feeling better,” he murmured, showing her into a side room so small it might have been a closet. 

“A bit. I’ve never been good with colds.” She scowled at his growing grin. “Yes, I heard I was somewhat difficult.”

“You called Dwalin an oversized donkey with spades on his fingers.”

She pursed her lips against a smile. “I’m sure there was a reason.”

He chuckled and pulled her closer, murmuring into her hair, “I never thanked you.”

The firm press of his chest, the warmth which seemed to emanate from everywhere as he wrapped his arms around her—it was almost enough to banish her nagging unease. Almost.

“You don’t have to.”

“And yet I will, because once again, you ensured the survival of my nephew, when I could not.”

She heard the slight tension in his voice, not quite able to hide his disapproval. “It doesn’t matter. What’s done is done.”

“I am not angry.”

“There’s no reason for you to be.”

His grip around her shoulder tightened, and then relaxed.

That little gesture, the unwinding of his need for control, made her own temper dim. “Is he…?”

“Kíli will be fine,” he murmured, hand cupping the back of her head with a gentle touch. 

How strange it was to feel him move so softly, for such a large mountain of a man. _A warrior-smith, and he still manages to hold me like I’m something precious._

“Óin says his sleep is natural, if prolonged. Apparently he tried to hit Fíli when he helped him out of his boots, so,” he sighed, “we are taking that as a good sign.”

She closed her eyes and let herself sink into him, savoring this gentleness while she could. 

Balin’s words fluttered around her skull like moths. She wasn’t a dwarf. She didn’t know the intricacies of his culture, and history. With Erebor and Smaug looming before them, the full weight of their purpose seemed to fall down around her as she held him close. He was a king, with a kingdom waiting for him. Beyond the mountain, he had a life, and a home, and a people. He had responsibilities that could not include an insignificant hobbit.

And what did she have, beyond the memories she would take with her when the dragon was bested and his Heart of the Mountain was found? A long journey back to a place which had not been a home for a long, long time. 

Balin was right about one thing. She didn’t know if she could make herself into someone who lived in a kingdom under a mountain, no matter how brilliantly it might shine. Thorin had to know that. 

“What’s wrong?” he asked, leaning back to look into her face. 

She tried to smile, to brush it off so she might prolong this lovely thing between them a while longer, but her skill at deception failed her. In the face of his pale blue eyes, eyes which glowed through her and made her feel like she’d known nothing of life before them or after, she faltered.

“We need to talk,” she said softly. “Before Durin’s Day. When it’s the right moment.”

His expression went still, a careful hesitation entering his hands as he brushed back her hair. One finger wound around an errant curl. “We do.”

She’d been readying herself for weeks, every day in the Woodland Realm when she set aside her better instincts and let herself talk of courting and beads, of simple things that some other woman might have cherished and longed for. But it still hurt to see him agree with her so soon. 

“Right,” she said, leaning up on her toes to kiss him once, twice, as a rumble spread through his chest and hummed into her lips. She forced herself not to hold his face between her hands, wanting to keep him, keep them both like this, forever. 

He nodded, and stiffened as he walked into the main room before her. Bella trailed in his wake and tried not to feel as if she were fast approaching an end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to reiterate that most of what I am going to do in this story is not canon. I know a little about the greater Legendarium, and have consulted the wiki a bunch, but I am by no means an expert on Tolkien or his mythology. I'm making up a lot of it as I go, so I'm not intending to be faithful to any of the sources in this fic <3 
> 
> I like writing fics that rely heavily on the specific view of the narrator, in this case, Bella and Thorin. They're not reliable at times, because they both have their own prejudices and hang-ups, their own hopes and dreams, and they're also incredibly forceful about said views. It's my goal that you get a very specific feeling from each of these characters, not a Word of God portrayal of events as they actually happen. 
> 
> I'm not calling anyone out here (you guys have been lovely, seriously, and I'm mostly drawing off my experience with past fandoms who have not been so kind about my tweaking canon) and I don't want anyone to feel bad, I just wanted to give a more detailed reason as to why I change so many little details, some which don't mean much for the world at large, but some that change the fundamentals. This isn't everyone's bag, I know, so I completely understand if you're left confused by a choice I make. I hope I've given enough of an in-text framework to support that change, but I'm still learning, so if there's something you don't understand, feel free to ask and I will try to explain as best I can.
> 
> Again, you're _all_ lovely, and I can't thank you enough for being so kind. It's really nice to get such support for this story.


	30. No Other Place

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Dreaming My Dreams" by The Cranberries](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9xBd63USwY&index=30&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-)

If Thorin had been hoping the distraction of finding them somewhere to stay while they remained in Lake-town would overshadow his growing apprehension of the quickly-ending quest, he was severely disappointed. The day Kíli had finally blinked tired eyes open and ribbed his brother for crying in happiness, the people of Lake-town learned of his presence. The news swept like a wave over the crowds of humans, some of them happy and eager to place them in the stories brought down from the descendants of Dale’s ruin, some of them watching with the same hard distrust they’d been met with in Bard’s eyes. The Master of Lake-town was one of the former, inviting Thorin into his own home for the duration of their stay and going out of his way to make them feel welcome. If the obvious greed in his eyes made Thorin wary, the human proved himself far too craven to approach the mountain while the question of the dragon remained, much happier to let Thorin, no matter his claim, poke his head in first. 

The Company left Bard’s home three days after arriving, with only a tight farewell and the sharp gaze of its master to follow them. Thorin wondered at the familiarity in his face, if perhaps he hailed from one of the families he’d had reason to meet in the Dale of old. His wonderings were put to rest when the Master informed him, with a belch and an ugly grimace over dinner that night, that Bard had descended from Girion, the last king of Dale. Fate, it seemed, had a sense of humor. 

When the Master had retired for the evening, making grand pronouncements of the bountiful luck he’d felt at their meeting, the Company settled in for a night of uncharacteristic comfort. There was no danger, save that which they could handle, should any of the humans think to attack them. The hearth flickered merrily before Thorin where he sat beside Bella, who had been puffing stubbornly on a pipe for the last hour. Óin, having lost a shouting match earlier that day when he tried to discourage her from the practice, as she had only recently been ill and he did not believe her when she waxed poetic about the medicinal benefits of Shireling tobacco, merely glowered as she insisted on finishing the bowl. Thorin smiled, reaching an arm around her shoulder as she let her head fall against him. 

Part of him wanted to pretend that there was nothing beyond this room, where his Company sang and joked, hearts lighter than they had been in months. But he could not ignore the unfamiliar walls, the gaudy furnishings and the smell of fish and water in the air. His home lay close, only a few days journey beyond this floating town, and yet he was afraid. Not of the dragon, strangely, not anymore than he had ever been. 

He was afraid of what came after. The journey had seemed so long when he set out from the Blue Mountains, he had thought the certainty would come to him before the end, the confidence he would need to be a king in full, and not just in wishing. He had ached and longed and begged with Mahal for so many years. Now that he was here, he knew he was not ready. Even worse, he wondered if he would ever be. He had only ever been a king in name, and a poor one at that. He feared for the moment he would stop playing, and need to lead his people in earnest.

Premature thoughts for a moment which was still little more than a possibility. If they did not manage to roust Smaug from his hole, and kill the fell beast, it would not matter that he was afraid.

At a rather large cough from Bella, he grinned, happy to distract himself with happier thoughts. “I can finish that if you’d rather not hurt yourself to prove a point.”

She shook her head vigorously, nearly upending the bowl onto his pants. “I don’t know what you—,” she took a deep breath, “what you could possibly mean.”

“I know what might help,” Bofur said from the other side of their circle, plucking absently on his lute. Nori lay with his head in Bofur’s lap, eyes closed, fingers moving as he idly flipped coins over his knuckles. “Perhaps your voice needs a bit of flexing, hm? A good tickle of the old vocal chords? A wee tuning of the throat?” He winked at Bella. 

“Oh, yes, Bella,” Ori piped up. “Sing for us, wouldn’t you?”

Thorin had to fight a smile as Bella met the young dwarf’s eyes, knowing she was having a hard time refusing him. Ori could put even Kíli to shame with his wide, beseeching eyes. Probably because there was no trace of mischief to be found. 

“Surely you aren’t tired of Bofur already?” she hedged.

“Aren’t we?” Nori said without opening his eyes. 

Bofur scowled, but shook his head. “No, no, I never claimed ownership over the nighttime merriment. This is a democratic Company. Apart from,” he waved at Thorin, “you know, the king.”

“And why is the king exempt?” Bella straightened to arch an eyebrow at him. “You’ve yet to entertain us since that first night in my sitting room.”

“I hadn’t realized you were listening.”

“I had a bunch of dwarves bellowing morosely one room over,” she said dismissively. “What else was I supposed to do?”

“Don’t encourage him,” Dwalin grunted from the other side of the circle, cleaning his boots with what looked like a piece of the table cloth on which they’d eaten earlier. “Next he’ll start droning on about harps and strings and we’ll all fall asleep in our mugs.”

Thorin glared at his friend, annoyance cut by his faint smile. 

“Harp?”

He nodded at Bella. “I used to play.”

“Did you really?” she asked softly, tilting her head. 

“Is that so surprising?”

She pursed her lips, but didn’t answer. Between them stretched a moment of silence. Thorin wondered at how much he had yet to learn of his burglar, how much he _wanted_ to learn.

“Stop it, you two,” Fíli said, throwing a crumpled ball of pounded metal, the remnants of a goblet Fíli had reshaped into simple pewter earrings after supper, at Thorin’s head. “You’ll make me lose my dinner.”

Bella snatched it out of the air before it could hit his face, scowling. “You are a nasty child.”

“He is just jealous. My sister-son couldn’t carry a tune if his life depended on it.” Thorin winked at Fíli as he took the sheet of pounded metal and reshaped it as best he could into a bird. The material was cheap, one touch could tell him that much, as he felt the impurities and where it was cut with aluminum and copper. _Human craftsmanship_ , he thought dismissively. He gave it back to Bella, grinning at her look of barely suppressed surprise. 

“I’m better than Kíli,” Fíli shrugged, elbowed his brother where he sat flipping a piece of folded paper over his fingers. 

“Hmm?” Kíli looked up, as if he’d forgotten there was anyone else around him. “What’s that?”

“You can’t sing for shit.”

“Oh.” The ghost of a smile passed over his lips, but it was gone again just as quickly. “Very kind of you, brother.”

Thorin wasn’t the only one to turn concerned eyes on Kíli. His nephew had barely spoken the past few days. The wound in his leg hurt, clearly, just as Bella’s shoulder had hurt, and would continue to hurt. But there was something else hanging over him, a dark cloud which made Thorin uncountably nervous. No doubt he was embarrassed. The scene with the elf was disturbing, and better forgotten, though he still wondered why she had agreed to save any of his Company. Perhaps she was simply kind, but he couldn’t shake the thought that something else was at work. Some kind of machinations hidden to disrupt his quest. _The snake king’s doing._

It made sense that Kíli was feeling odd, and would take time to return to his usual boisterous self. All of them were worried about elves appearing out of the waters to drag them back into the forest. All of them, except Bella, of course. But her naïvety was to be forgiven. She did not know Thranduil, not as well as he. Thorin knew the elf would return for what he wanted, sooner, or later. If his captain of the guard had ingratiated herself to them, it would be all the easier for the trap to spring when they were least expecting it. 

He met Fíli’s gaze and saw his concern reflected there.

“I have a proposition,” Bella said, perhaps a bit too loudly, and with a cheer which would normally raise Thorin’s guard—the things which brought her joy tended to make his immediate future difficult and uncomfortable. 

“Hold on to your hats, lads,” Bofur said with a snort.

“I’ll sing another song if Thorin sings first.” 

Dwalin groaned. “Here we go.”

“If you wanted me to serenade you, burglar,” he murmured, letting his hands drop a few inches down her back, enjoying how her spine went taut as she kept her gaze purposefully unaffected, “you just had to ask.”

“Serenade in your own time,” Balin said without looking up from whatever he was reading next to the fire.

“What wonderful friends I have to encourage me so,” he said dryly. “And to have come through so much and still feel such warmth and respect.”

Balin snorted, while Dwalin gave him a thin smile. Glóin, who had always been a firm and staunch supporter and friend, said serenely, “My warmth and respect is weighed with the money I poured into this venture, dear cousin, and I will gladly offer it to you once more when I am repaid.” 

He and Dori had been mending and tailoring clothes for the Company the past few days, taking what the Master gave them and making their own wearable once more. Soon, he hoped they would be able to find their own garments, but he would accept Lake-town’s charity. For now. 

“I’m waiting,” Bella said, brow arched.

Thorin smiled. “Bofur, might I request the use your lute?”

She settled back, watching him with bright, intent eyes as Thorin plucked a few strings. He thought about playing an old favorite of his, a song of the story of the dwarf who fell in love with the sun and their sordid love affair, but he hesitated. In the shadow of the mountain, he couldn’t help but remember the lullaby he used to sing to Fíli and Kíli when they were young and restless before sleep. It wasn’t something usually shared with outsiders, but as he considered Bella, he realized that she hadn’t been an outsider for a long time. 

He looked at his nephews, relieved when Kíli met his gaze for what might have been the first time that day. “You two should remember this one.” 

Though his fingers had not plucked strings in many, many years, they recalled the sensation, the gentle give of taut horse hair. He had no real sense of wood, though he’d worked with it before. It was an unruly substance, unlike stone or metal. It had too much life for his taste and tended to work against him, no matter how gently he handled it, how subtly he bend it to his will. Only when he played did he understand the love elves and humans held for it. _Hobbits too_ , he supposed, as he strummed with callused hands more fit for fighting, finding his way back to the music, and the song he’d sung so many times before.

_“Round the corner there may wait  
_ _A green world, or a secret glade  
_ _And though I have passed them by  
_ _A day will come to say goodbye._

_Roads wind ever, ever far  
_ _Over mountain and under star,  
_ _Feet that wandering have gone,  
_ _Yet turn at last to where you roam._

_I’ll take the hidden path that runs  
_ _West of the moon, and East of sun.  
_ _I’m glad that you are here with me,  
_ _Here at the end of all things._

_Night too shall be beautiful  
_ _And blessed and its fear will pass.  
_ _Seven stars and seven stones,  
_ _The love you gave is all that’s left to me._

_Use well the days.  
_ _Use well the days.  
_ _Turn your face to the new dawn.  
_ _Use well the days._

_Use well the days.  
_ _Use well the days.  
_ _Turn your face to the new dawn.  
_ _Use well the days.”_

Thorin finished with a smile, letting the slow-building melody fade with the last plucking of strings. He was glad to find his mind mostly free of sadder memories, though they lingered in the air around him. There was a commonly held belief that the spirits of their dead came to them in the singing of the old songs. Something in the resonance, purer in khuzdul, but no less meaningful in westron, drew out the common thread connecting all dwarrows even beyond the living veil. It was a quiet beckoning he played here in this human home, without the purposeful halls and stone to conduct them up, but he felt them nonetheless. Just as he had felt them in Bella’s home on the night which had changed his life irrevocably. 

“Now that is a song I have not heard in a long time,” Balin murmured, his book set aside, watching Thorin with a mixture of sympathy and hope. 

“I thought it was fitting,” he murmured, staring around at his dwarrows, seeing his solemnity and fierce longing reflected in every gaze. 

Bella leaned up to press a kiss to his cheek, eyes bright and burning with a light which kindled heat inside his chest. “That was lovely.”

“It’s an old traveling song, one written after we lost Erebor. I don’t recall how it started, or why, but one day it came upon us like a bank of mist. Little by little, all of us leaving the mountain knew it. We sang it to remind us that though we had lost so much, there was something more to look forward to. It is one of our more hopeful hymns.” His mouth twitched. “My people don’t sing it often anymore.”

She smiled sadly. “They might again soon.”

“Aye,” Dwalin said softly, “that they might, lass.”

“I never really thought I’d see the Lonely Mountain,” Kíli murmured, staring with distant eyes at the middle ground. It was more than he’d said all day. “You all talked about it so much, I’d started to believe it was just a story, or something bigger than I could imagine, like Mahal or the World Beyond. I keep finding myself staring at it, just to make sure it doesn’t disappear.”

Fíli nodded, a deep furrow creasing his brow, and casting his features in an older light. 

“It’s smaller than I thought it would be,” Ori said, fidgeting with the edge of his sweater.

“Nah,” Bofur mused, “it’s just right.”

All of them lapsed into a weighty silence, each dwarf who could remembering the long march out of Erebor, the others with thoughts of their own. Thorin tried to imagine seeing the mountain for the first time. He’d been so small when his father had taken him out to visit Dale, he couldn’t recall his thoughts at seeing the Lonely Mountain, the towering citadel under which his home was built. Erebor had been written into the foundations of his soul since birth. There was no way to separate himself from it, and no way to look on it with eyes which did not turn to it without thought when his mind wandered. 

He turned a grin on Bella, who had been watching him closely. “I believe I have filled my end of the bargain.”

The mood lightened considerably as she smiled her mischievous smile and straightened. She shook her head as he offered her the lute, and stood, reaching over him to take his nearly full tankard and empty it in one go. 

“Why do I suddenly fear for my life?” Fíli asked darkly. 

“Because you were raised to be smart,” Dwalin said with a wary frown.

“Honestly, for a bunch of battle-hardened men,” she said cheerily, reaching up and, to Thorin’s immediate interest, letting her wealth of curly hair fall down around her shoulders like coiled, burnished gold, “you act sometimes like a bunch of disapproving old chickens.” She belched as she stretched. “Excuse me.”

“What are you doing?” Thorin asked with a growing smile as she hiked up her skirts and hoisted herself up onto the table. She tugged on her dress, as if she were trying to make more room for herself, which only served to make her chest all the more visible. 

“I am going to show you all how Tooks enjoy themselves.” She grinned knowingly and gave him a cheeky wink as she fluffed up her hair. “Now, there’s no fiddle, and you all should be tipping over drunk, but I am nothing if not an enterprising woman. I shall make do. Let’s see if I can get through a verse without hacking up my lungs.”

She cleared her throat, stomped her large, hairy feet on the table twice, and began to sing.

_“Hey! Ho! To the bottle I go.  
_ _To heal my heart and drown my woe.  
_ _Rain may fall and wind may blow,  
_ _But there still be many miles to go._

_Sweet is the sound of the pouring rain,  
_ _And the stream that falls from hill to plain.  
_ _Better than rain or rippling brook  
_ _Is a mug of beer inside this Took!”_

She laughed as the Company began to cheer, kicking up her feet as she danced, pounding out a driving rhythm they took up with their clapping. Thorin had always thought her graceful, if a bit manic in her demeanor at times. Watching her feet move so fast, drumming her own staccato accompaniment with heel and toe as she jumped up and down, hair leaping up from her shoulders with a life all its own, she looked like an ember popping amid coals, or a bird hopping over the ground. She whistled as she went, punctuating a few louder trills by kicking a candle-holder and an empty water pitcher off the table to give her room. If he had summoned the solemnity of his forefathers with his song, she was calling light to her, spinning it through the air. Joy, brilliant and sparking, flew off her shoulders and hair, infectious and catching. 

_“Oh, you can search far and wide,_  
_You can drink the whole town dry,  
_ _But you’ll never find a beer so brown,  
_ _As the one we drink in our hometown._

_You can drink your fancy ales,_  
_You can drink them by the flagon,  
_ _But the only brew for the brave and true  
_ _Comes from the Green Dragon!”_

The song finished with a flourish as she rose onto the very tips of her toes and twirled, skirts and hair spinning in a mad whirl. Thorin thought she might actually take off into the air, before she landed with a thud and a grin, and curtsied. 

Every dwarf in the room broke into mad applause, laughing and clapping each other on the back as mugs clinked. 

“And that, gentlemen,” she called with a toothy smile, cheeks flushed and chest heaving, eyes winking like sunlight off a still pond, “is a _proper_ drinking song.”

Thorin thought he should be praised for not lunging for her right away, with the heat curling in his stomach at the sight of her smile and tinkling laugh. He felt transported and giddy, young and foolish and in love. As it was, he managed to let her get down from the table herself before he pulled her into a hard kiss. He relished her laughter against his lips, tipped her backwards and swallowed her surprised noise. 

She opened her eyes as he held her, cupped his face with small, softly callused hands, fitting her fingers over his beard and smoothing the skin to his temple as she laughed breathlessly. Her cheeks were flushed and the light in her eyes might have burned him whole, if he let it.

He knew he was a man pledged to something larger than himself, and that the arc of his life had not bent toward her with ease or even with sense, but as he held her bright black eyes with his, and felt her body hum and jump in his hands—he understood a bit of what it meant to be blissfully, simply, _happy_. 

The laughs of his Company turned to groans of mock, and actual, disgust, and Bella shoved from his chest with a giddy defiance, nearly falling before he caught her up again. Dwalin roared for more hobbit songs and Bofur tried to mimic her quick footwork, managing a few only a few steps before losing his balance and tumbling into Dori’s lap. Even Kíli grinned and needled Bella as she coyly demurred and refused another round, tucking her feet into her skirts as Thorin pulled her into his lap. 

The mountain could wait for tomorrow’s worries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buckle in for a lot of notes (sorry :P)
> 
> 1\. The song Thorin sings is extrapolated from the song that (I believe) was originally intended to end the LOTR trilogy instead of "Into the West," ["Use Well the Days"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7MWsNGsA5o). I forget exactly where in the text the lyrics are taken from, but I thought this was fitting for the dwarves, and so I changed the lyrics a bit to better fit Thorin.
> 
> 2\. The song Bella sings is, as you probably know, a combination of the two drinking songs we hear from Merry and Pippin in the Original Trilogy. The songs themselves are written by Bilbo, too, so it's doubly fun.
> 
> 3\. I have nine chapters after this one until I reach the end of what I have pre-written. Due to a number of decisions I made over the new year, I will be taking a break when I've uploaded everything. This story became much larger than I originally intended it to be, and the "sequel" that I have planned out is already as long as this one, and might even become longer. I will be finishing off this fic at 40 chapters, and will mark it as finished, because I think it's a good place to pause. (Good for me, maybe not so great for you guys...) I want to finish this story off the right way, rather than rushing through just to be done, and so I'm going to ask for your patience. I won't say how long it will take me to start on the next part, but it will be a while. I'm working on some original stuff, as well as finishing off my other WIPs, so I would not expect anything for a long time. You guys have been so sweet to me the past few months, I am going to ask again for kindness and patience while I do some other things. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this last part. It's some of my favorite bits <3


	31. Lay Me Down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Golden Dandelions - Acoustic" by Barns Courtney](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUq2ZeEFoKs&index=31&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-)
> 
> **NSFW ahead ;)**

Bella found herself sitting on the upper porch of the Master’s home, staring out over the inky night of Lake-town. The water was still, like a black pane of glass stretching out to the horizon. There was no moon in the sky, and so she could barely see past the few flickering torches standing on the edge of docks, marking the disappearing streets and the line of houses extending out across the lake. Beyond that, there was a desolate plain, and though she couldn’t see it, a mountain. That self-same mountain which had loomed large in her thoughts of late.

A small creak of wood sounded behind her, and she grinned despite her sense of foreboding. “The point of sneaking off is so that no one follows me, you know.”

A chuckle answered her, low and deep, familiar. When did he stop being afraid of her sharp tongue? “Here I thought your lingering glance was an invitation.”

“How very presumptuous of you.”

She shifted slightly on her bench and didn’t look as Thorin sat beside her. His warmth seemed to reach for her through the air, and she shivered. 

“You need a coat.” He shrugged out of his own and draped it over her shoulders, hands lingering around her neck, brushing her chilled skin as he tucked it close. 

“I have a coat.”

“A coat which does not seem to keep you warm.”

She pulled the fur-lined collar more closely around her, settling back against the bench and breathing in deep the rich scent. Bother and confusticate dwarves for seeming to smell so nice despite all the nastiness they’d gotten into. It was downright obnoxious. 

“My mother only traveled during the warmer months, I think,” she murmured. “She wouldn’t have needed anything so thick and lined, however nice this might be. Why I thought I wouldn’t either, I don’t know, but,” she shrugged, “well.”

“It was your mother’s coat,” he said slowly, as if he finally understood her attachment to it.

Turning to find him watching her with a furrowed brow, she grinned around the little ache in her chest. “As fine as hobbit tailoring is, I think I prefer yours. At least as far as traveling over mountains and through cursed forests goes.”

His mouth smoothed into a satisfied grin. “I never thought I would hear you admit anything of dwarven make was superior to that of hobbit. I should mark this occasion.”

“You should, as is it likely never to happen again.”

He reached up for a loose curl of her hair, twisting it around his finger once before brushing it behind her ear. “Did you truly want to be alone?”

“No,” she murmured, curse her for it. She would never admit it to him, but she _had_ gone soft, just like he’d said in Mirkwood. He had made her soft, in ways she didn’t yet understand, or want. 

His eyes roved hungrily over her face, as if he were trying to memorize it. “Good.”

They leaned into each other at the same time, his hands holding her face gently as hers balled into his tunic— _as easy as falling_ , she remembered Tauriel’s words. Their kiss was slow, surprisingly chaste, and when she realized his grip remained loose, almost hovering over her skin, she pulled back. 

Part of her marveled at how quickly this had become normal. Exciting and terrifying and intoxicating, yes, but _normal_. They’d barely touched each other, not really, and yet kissing him, being with him, had become almost second nature. 

Something in his eyes retreated as he saw her hesitation. “Have we arrived at the right moment?”

She smiled tightly, smoothed out his tunic as she sat back. “Looks like.”

A ball of tension expanded between them, turning the soft night into something foreign and stiff. He released her face, let his hands rest over his knees, as if he were bracing himself. Her usual frustration with his tendency to want to protect her fled at the sight of him in pain for what he was about to say.

“Bella—”

“Let me start, please.” She stood, pushing her hands through the arms of his coat, pulling it more firmly around her as she took a few necessary steps away from him. She couldn’t think with him so near. The words hung in her throat, lodged like thorns, and she fought the urge to simply kiss him again and postpone this ending, postpone it forever. 

“I realize that neither of us intended to—to find ourselves in this,” she turned back to him and gestured between them, “predicament. But we’re adults. There’s no reason for this to be so fraught.”

She met his gaze with a confidence she did not feel, hoping her wild little heart could survive the next few minutes. He held himself perfectly still, his brow furrowed and his face calm. 

“You have a kingdom waiting for you,” she said slowly, “and a life which does not include me. I understand that, and I have understood it since I met you. So before you start expanding upon the supreme guilt you feel for our situation and take all the blame upon yourself as I know you’re about to do, I want you to know that I don’t regret anything.” Her courage fractured a bit as the truth welled up inside her, finally, after ignoring it for almost a month. “I wouldn’t change anything either, except perhaps how nasty I was to you in the beginning. I didn’t—I didn’t understand my feelings then. But I do now, and I hope you know that I will always be your friend, after…after all this is through.”

He said nothing, watching her with a hard, intent stare. 

“I never expected anything from you, Thorin,” she said softly. “I knew who you were when I began to care for you. Perhaps it’s different for dwarves, but kissing and saving one another’s lives doesn’t bind anyone to anything, not like it might for you. You don’t have to apologize. I’m not so young as to—”

“Apologize?” he asked sharply, startling her. His calm expression had vanished, replaced by one of utmost confusion. “Why would I need to apologize?”

Something fragile cracked in her chest, like splintering glass. “You don’t. I just said—”

His voice rushed out in an expelled breath as he said, “You care for me?”

She frowned. “I should think that was obvious.” Thorin Oakenshield was not a kind man, not in the easy, intrinsic way of his nephew, but he wasn’t cruel. She’d expected him to grumble about honor or propriety or something. This…took her by surprise. “But don’t concern yourself over my feelings. I’m old enough to handle rejection. Like I said, I will still be your friend.”

He leaned forward, looking as dumbfounded as she’d ever seen him. “You think I’m—rejecting you?”

“No, I didn’t mean—” She shook her head, looking down at her feet to gather her wits once more. He had to make this as difficult as he could, didn’t he? “I didn’t mean _reject_ in the strict sense. Obviously, this is more complicated. I simply meant that I understand the awkward position you are in, and wanted to save you the trouble of ending this by doing it myself. And, once again, to reassure you that I don’t hold you in any contempt for what… I harbor no ill-will toward you on my end.”

Taking a deep breath, she looked up to find him watching her with a dawning realization. His expression smoothed into one of surprise, and concern. “You think I would willingly part from you?”

Her mind went entirely blank. For a moment she just stared at him, flipping through a flurry of emotions—anger, at thinking he might be toying with her for sport, confusion, at seeing relief in his eyes, and then, most distressing of all, a small, faint flicker of something which felt dangerously like hope. 

“Wouldn’t you?” she breathed before she could stop herself.

He exhaled, a confused smile lighting up his face. “No. I—Bella, I would not. I would never.”

“You’re a king.” It was the only thing she could think to say. 

His smile grew and a relieved laugh broke from his lips. “I’m aware.”

“Well, then, there we are.” She frowned. “That’s it, then.”

“What about my being king necessitates me rejecting you?”

Well, now this was getting ridiculous. If he was trying to argue for her sake, she did not want, or need it. She struggled for some kind of solid ground on which to stand in the tangled mass of her thoughts. “You don’t have to do that,” she muttered.

“Do what?”

“Pretend that me being an insignificant hobbit from a far off country doesn’t make any difference as to whether or not we can—you know.”

His expression softened, and he stood. “Bella—”

“I don’t want your pity, Thorin Oakenshield,” she snapped, stepping back and finding her anger again, clutching it in front of her like a shield. “I already have Balin’s. I couldn’t bear yours as well.”

Thorin blinked, and asked flatly, “What did he say to you?”

“He told me a poorly veiled story meant to remind me that dwarves and other people can’t be together, which was stupid, because I understand that there are differences between us. I’ve known that from the start. He didn’t need to lay them out at my feet as if I were a child.”

“He said we couldn’t be together?” he said darkly.

She hesitated at the anger in his voice, at the idea that he would disagree. “Not—not exactly. But he seemed eager to remind me that I was not made to live under the earth and something about a sun whom I assume was meant to stand in for _me,_ and that—caring for you would be…painful. Honestly, he’s usually so direct—I half expected Gandalf to fly out of his robes with all the cryptic nonsense.”

He tensed, hands balling into fists at his side. Once again, a careful expression settled over his features. “Did he say anything else?”

“He said a great deal, but,” she exhaled in frustration, “it doesn’t matter. I know that you can’t offer me anything beyond this, whatever _this_ is. You’re a king, and I’m about as far from dwarven royalty as one can get. I’ve never expected anything more from you than borrowed time, and so I will not ask for more, and no matter how much I might—”

“Bella, stop— _please_ ,” he said, stepping toward her and gripping her shoulders, running his hands down her arms in a soothing, and entirely too distracting, motion. 

There was a manic, pleading light in his eyes. She’d never seen him so undone before. Angry and frustrated, yes, and unnaturally fierce in the heat of battle when his eyes burned with rage, but never _frightened_.

“I should have done this a long time ago,” he murmured, cupping her face with a reverent, almost shaking hand. His jaw feathered, and he seemed to be drawing himself up, gathering his courage. “Mahal damn me—Bella, I want to _marry_ you.”

Somewhere in the region of her chest, shock thudded into her with all the weight of an olefant. She had been proposed to before, of course, a few times. When she’d been Out and courting in the Shire, many young hobbits had trailed after her skirts, and a few had even thought to ask for her hand, before they realized the kind of woman she was and how thoroughly she did not want a normal Shire life. But she’d never been _surprised._

She only realized her mouth was hanging open when a trail of drool slid over her chin. She nearly bit her tongue as she closed it, blinking rapidly in an attempt to reorder her thoughts into something which resembled coherence. “You want to _what_?”

His lips twitched in the ghost of a smile. “I want to marry you, Bella Baggins. I want to live with you for the rest of my days,” he said, his voice going soft and supple, rumbling through his hands and making her feel like a loosely packed bit of sparks. “I want never to be parted from you in this life or, Mahal willing, the next.” He hesitated, and murmured in a dangerously sweet tone, “When—all of this is done and my life is once again mine to give, I intend to ask you to be my queen.”

She blinked rapidly, shaking her head as her body tried to deny what her mind was still having trouble understanding. “Of—of all the _ridiculous_ ,” she spluttered, feeling as if her mouth were moving disconnected from the rest of her. “You—you _can’t_. I’m a hobbit.”

A smile pulled at his lips. “I have noticed.”

“Right. So.” She swallowed, took a deep breath. “I can’t be a…a—” She couldn’t even think it. She _couldn’t_. He was mad for even thinking she could.

His brow furrowed. “Do you object to me, or to my crown?”

“I object to you plenty, thank you,” she said, trying to pour some bite into her words but coming up with something closer to a manic whisper. “ _You_ are insufferable, and overbearing, and entirely too proud for your own good. You are rude, and egotistical, and have a tendency to say the exact wrong thing at the exact wrong time. _You_ —”

“I think I understand,” he said dryly, though there flickered in his eyes a wonderful, growing light, a kind of happiness she had never really seen before. “I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”

She exhaled sharply. “Neither can I.”

He chuckled, stepping closer to her as he threaded his hands into her hair. 

“Stop that,” she murmured, “please. I can’t think when you—I can’t think.”

His hands dropped at once, though his eyes still pinned her, pierced through her with a sweet, aching longing. 

“Thorin,” she started, heart fluttering madly, “you _can’t_ want to marry me. Your people need a queen, or a king not bogged down by entanglements to some random burglar a wizard shoved into his lap. An actual queen,” she said as he opened his mouth, “a _dwarven_ queen.”

This seemed to break through to him at last. His expression turned cautious, and discomfort twisted his mouth. “Most kings don’t marry. My father didn’t. We don’t practice the same kind of alliance building that humans engage in, as kin runs deeper than immediate family. No dwarf can be forced into a marriage he does not want, and no dwarf would question another’s choice of spouse. And as for you not being an actual queen…” He smiled a small, knowing smile, tinged with sadness and not a bit of insecurity. “A king or a queen is something one aspires to be, not something one is born into.”

Bella swallowed down the jumping pulse in her throat, torn between wanting to deny him the ludicrous idea that she could ever be a _queen_ , and thrilling at the idea that he thought her worthy of asking. 

“Do you remember what I told you about marriages of convenience?”

“Yes, I do,” she said, heat rising up her chest. “I remember the rest as well. What will happen if you find your…partner, and you’re shackled to me?”

Hesitation settled over him, so palpable she could almost feel it herself. He murmured, with the same careful, cautious reverence he’d used when he had played and sang earlier, “I have already found her.”

All the breath rushed out of her lungs, as if someone had taken her up and squeezed her like a bellows. Her head swam a bit as she stared at him, at this dwarf who had spoken so passionately of love in a dirty tavern months and months ago, of searching his whole life to find the one person whose soul sang in harmony with his own. 

He couldn’t mean her. Surely. 

_Oh._

“I didn’t think—,” she stared, voice hollow. “I thought you meant between dwarves.”

“I did,” he murmured, “at the time. You seem determined to undermine my every preconception of the world.”

“Thorin,” she breathed, pricks of light unfurling inside her with a giddy, manic release, “I don’t understand.”

Again, his brow furrowed as he dragged up courage to speak. “We call it _âzyungel_ ,” he said softly. “No one knows how, or why, it happens, only that some dwarrows find a love so intense, so pure, that it can only be named in khuzdul, in that purest of all man-made tongues. It is a love bound by fate, by the will of Mahal himself.” He hesitated, and the insecurity which entered his eyes made her chest clench and ache. “I know not how it feels for one who is not a dwarf, but I… I love you, Bella Baggins. I love you, as I have never loved anyone before, and will never love again.”

Heat surged like a shower of sparks through her mind. Her hands clenched and reached up without thought to press against her chest, to try and stop the giddy, explosive beating of her heart. 

He loved her. He _loved_ her. 

“I cannot give you more than my love, now,” he added, still watching her with fear in his eyes. “My life is pledged to Erebor, but my heart… My heart is yours.”

“ _Oh_ ,” she sighed, unable to stop the tremble in her fingers. 

“I know this is not the way to do this,” he continued, speaking quick and rough, “but I—I cannot bear the thought of you thinking me indifferent, or that I would leave you once I took back my home.”

Her mind spiraled as she tried to make sense of his words. He didn’t want to leave her. All the careful hedging and building of walls around her heart over the past few months crumbled as brilliant, wonderful relief tore them down. He wanted to _marry_ her. 

“Bella, I am—I had thought to ask you properly, once I had something to give beyond my word. You deserve more than an empty promise from an exiled king.”

“ _Thorin_ , you—you absolute,” she tried to say in a shaking voice. “You think I care about—” 

There was nothing to be done for her scrambling mind, too lost in the revelation that he _loved_ her. And so she pulled his face down and kissed him, trying to pour her every mad and whirling thought into his mouth, as if she might be able to convey the deep, intense affection she felt without words. They knew each other better now, and so the kiss was not painful or awkward, fitting together hesitantly, but surely, as if they were two parts of one whole.

He tensed, though his arms came up around her, as if he couldn’t help but react to her touch. “Bella,” he murmured, pulling away from her lips. “I don’t—”

“I love you too, you great boulder,” she breathed, pressing a kiss to his brow, to his cheeks, gripping the side of his face to never let him go. “Thorin, I love you. I love—”

His eyes widened. A broken, heady sigh rumbled through his chest and his mouth found hers again, lips parting as he swallowed her confession. His hands came up and crushed her to him, holding her so tightly she thought she might not be able to breathe. She couldn’t find the energy to care as every moan from his throat carried weight as they sank deep into the core of her being. She was on fire, she was burning in the heat of him. She loved him, and _he loved her_.

His hands found their way inside his coat, gripping her waist and lifting her up into his arms, curving around her back as she arched into his chest. She wrapped her legs around him as best she could, but he was so damn big her feet barely touched. 

“Does this mean—,” he mouthed against her lips, against her neck as he trailed down across her skin.

Her laugh was strangled by the need for breath. “It means—that you have something to ask me once we get to Erebor—and deal with that pesky dragon.”

“And you will say yes?”

She grinned, shivered as the ghost of his teeth moved over the hollow where her neck met her collar, at the excitement in his grip. “What kind of woman would I be to agree,” her voice hitched as his thumb climbed higher up her side, catching an errant hole in her dress, “to a proposal not yet made?”

“You are cruel, Bright Eyes,” he murmured, smiling as his hands bunched in her dress. “Cruel and beautiful and clever and brave and—”

She kissed him, and kissed him, and felt happier than she could ever remember feeling before. So happy she might burst with it. 

“Hypothetically,” she said after a time, when her lips were beautifully bruised and her body sang with lightning bug giddiness, as she threaded her fingers through his hair, breathless with the heat curling at the base of her spine, “are kings allowed to engage in premarital, ah, bedroom activities?”

Thorin’s whole body went taut. The look in his eyes made her shudder as he began to walk them both back into the house. “Even if they weren’t, I’m only a king-in-exile. Rules can be bent.”

She laughed into his lips, wrapped her legs more tightly around him. “I always knew you were a scoundrel, Thorin Oakenshield.”

He might have said something smart, but it was swallowed by a moan as she covered his mouth with hers, stealing the sound, breathing it in like the rich smoke of her pipe. They moved through the house quickly. She was surprised no other dwarves barred their way—it wasn’t that late, and they weren’t that generous—until Thorin finally pressed her up against a wall, a door, she realized with a hazy awareness as he kissed and sucked on the skin behind her ear. She uncurled her feet and slid to the ground, grinning as she felt him grab at her out of reflex. 

“Hands, your majesty,” she chided, skipping back once the door was open. _His room_ , she noted with another smile. Hers was another floor up and sandwiched between the princes. 

“Is that warning or a suggestion?” he said, his voice low and thick as he closed the door behind him. 

She hummed a choked laugh, not sure whether she wanted to make him work for it, or indulge in the look of intense, wonderful promise in his eyes, _the absolute rogue._ Something had been unleashed in his gaze—as if he had only been waiting for her word, her confirmation that she reciprocated his feelings, to devour her whole. 

The thought made her skin feel hot and tight, the buzzing in her chest like a swarm of stars trying to break free. 

They stared at each other for a long, weighty moment. Bella saw the flush high on his cheeks, the rumpled collar of his tunic, the slight disarray of his greying hair. She mapped his broad shoulders with her eyes and began to catalogue which parts of him she wanted to claim first. His chest, his neck, the scars she knew mapped the whole of each trunk-like arm. The parts she didn’t yet know. Every little piece of him that she’d touched, she’d drawn out from him, was precious. This king who was not yet a king, but _hers_ , in a way she had never really let herself hope.

Slowly, unable to help a small, reckless grin, she shrugged out of his coat and let it fall onto the floor around her feet. 

If his eyes had been intent before, they seemed now to train on her with a bright, piercing light, watching her every moment with hawk-like focus. His feet remained planted, but he leaned forward, holding himself back. 

She unbuttoned her own traveling coat more slowly, making a show of it, heat rising up her neck with the direction of his gaze.

“Faster, burglar,” he said roughly, hands clenching at his sides and making the tendons in his wrist dance.

She thought about teasing him, drawing this out, making him wait for it until he was begging. She really did. But the promise in his voice and the slight licking of his lips made her thighs clench. _Another time_ , she told herself as her fingers flew down the coat, throwing it down next to his and starting frantically on the laces of her dress. 

The fabric was just starting to give when his patience ran out. His lips crushed against hers, hands tugging mercilessly on the front of her dress. “You’ll rip—,” she started, not really caring what the hell he did to the damn dress as long as it came off as soon as possible.

“I’ll buy you another,” he said roughly against her lips as it came undone. He pulled it over her head, tugging at the bundle of her curls as he went and scattering them over her shoulders. “I’ll buy you hundreds, in every shade of green you want. Coat them in emeralds and jade and malachite. You can have a damn forest of dresses. A glittering forest fit for a queen.”

“Promises, prom—” Her voice hitched into a startled moan as he tugged her forward, pulling at the laces of her corset as his mouth worked on her neck. She would have love bites tomorrow morning. The idea should have made her annoyed, and probably would later. Right now, it was hard not to just rut against him with all their clothes still on. 

Her own hands worked at his tunic, but he was moving so fast she could barely run her fingers over his taut, ridged stomach, the hair just as soft and thick as she remembered, before her corset gave way at last. His hand, large and callused, moved up under the stiff boning, and cupped her breasts. She gasped, eyelids fluttering shut as she leaned into his touch, gripped his shoulders to keep from sliding down to the floor in a hot puddle with her underskirts. 

“You are perfect,” he murmured, pulling the corset free from her body and exposing her over-heated flesh to the air. He ran his fingers over her nipples, tracing them, tweaking them ever so slightly. “You are so perfect.”

Before she knew what was happening, he had dropped to his knees in front of her. “Thorin,” she murmured, “you don’t have—”

“I want to taste you,” he pressed a kiss to her stomach, his tongue trailing up tease at her nipple. She keened, a sharp, unconscious noise bursting from her lips. A lance of sensation made her toes curl. A sweet, pounding need built between her legs. “I want you. I want you so much, Bella.”

She gripped his head as her body trembled, threading her hands into his hair as he worked his mouth over one breast and then the next. She tried not to make too much noise, but by the time his hands trailed over her ass and curled possessively around her thighs, she wasn’t much bothered to attempt to do _anything_ but remain standing. 

“Th- _Thorin_ ,” she moaned as his mouth moved lower. “Stop teasing.”

A chuckle rumbled through her thigh as he pressed her back against the edge of the bed, shifted her up slightly so that she was half-sitting on the mattress. “I recall someone once lecturing me on the values of patience.”

“Fuck patience,” she breathed, not waiting for him to drape a leg over his shoulder, pulling him toward her with an insistent, pleading nudge of her heel between his shoulder blades.

His grip tightened, fingers digging possessively into her thighs, and his eyes flashed up to meet hers. A smile, wolfish and hungry, gleamed in their depths. “As you wish.”

The cold air make her shiver for one second, before his tongue parted her folds. 

A stream of curses burst from her lips as her head fell back. Every stroke, every nudge of his nose and rough brush of his beard on her inner thighs made the shuddering heat inside her swell and lap. He was good, _far_ too good at this for a prickly old dwarf. She might have said as much, if she hadn’t been drifting up into the air like a flurry of embers loosed from a campfire. Her legs began to shake but his grip remained firm, steady. She rocked against him, nails digging into his scalp when he slipped a finger inside her, and another, stretching her gently, coaxing her open. He _moaned_ against her, the sound of his voice vibrating against her only urging her climax on, the rest of her running behind it in pursuit. 

“Thorin,” she choked, voice high and breaking as her vision wavered and the pleasure threatened to break her in two, “Thorin, I _can’t_ —” 

He grunted, pressed the flat of his tongue against her, and crooked his fingers inside _just_ right, and she came with a mangled cry.

Her body went boneless, but he caught her as she slid down and gasped for breath. She floated in the happy haze for a time, brought back by the gentle coaxing of his lips. 

“You—,” she breathed as he retread the path up her stomach with his tongue, licking at the beads of her sweat, “you lovely, clever… _Oh._ ” She shivered as he straightened and laid her back on the bed, carving twin lines up her body with his hands. 

“If I had known how easily you might be silenced, burglar,” he said with a satisfied grin that should have made her furious, but only reminded her of his lips, and his tongue, and how brilliant they both were, “I would have taken you to bed long ago.”

Her eyes narrowed, but she could only give a faint grunt as he buried his face between her breasts. She let him caress her for a while, thrilling in the exploration of her own body through his hands. After a while, though, she tugged at his tunic, groaning as he seemed unwilling to help. “Off.”

He chuckled, the sound doing unspeakable things to the sluggish desire uncurling again in the base of her stomach. “You think to command me, love?”

_Love_. Her chest ached with affection as she took his face in her hands, pulled it up from her chest. “In this, and many other things,” she murmured, “ _my king_.”

His breath hitched, eyes burning as they met hers. An expression of such tender, unguarded gratitude came over his face that she might have fallen in love with him all over again if she wasn’t already fit to bursting with it. She kissed him slowly, mapping the line of his lips with hers, and reached down for the edge of his tunic to pull it over his head. 

The urge to flip him over onto his back, to run her hands and tongue over every inch of his scarred, strong chest, surfaced in her love-drunk mind, but as he smoothed a hand down her spine, and she pressed herself up against him, she felt the firm length of him on her thigh. 

_Time enough for all things_ , she thought, working at the buttons of his pants as his heart pounded against hers. 

“Bella, I don’t want to hurt you,” he murmured, biting off a sharp groan as she slipped her hand down to tease over the head of his cock. 

“You won’t.”

She had to give him credit—even as she stroked him, getting a feel for just how different he was from a hobbit, just how much bigger, he seemed to be holding himself back. 

“Trust me,” she breathed, pushing down his pants with her toes, giving a little moan as his grip tightened on her waist, hard enough she might expect bruising in the morning. “You won’t hurt me,” she murmured, coaxing him down, “please, Thorin…”

He cursed in what she supposed was dwarvish, and kissed her again as he replaced her hand with his. She still tasted herself on his tongue, the salty-sweet musk of her own arousal making her whine. He canted her hips up, pressed the head of his cock against her as if in warning, and buried himself slowly inside her.

She breathed hard, adjusting as she tried to accommodate him. Her nails dug into his back as she stretched, the feeling a bit uncomfortable, but welcome. He moved slowly, sweetly, so achingly tender it made her heart hurt. His moaning filled her ears, broken, gasping, half in a tongue she understood and half-nonsense. He filled her, overwhelmed her. The sheer, bristling heat of him against her sweat-slicked body was like an open flame licking at her skin. 

And then he began to rock into her, and she couldn’t help but wonder if this feeling, this coming together, was the whole reason for the world’s existence. It was awkward, yes, and took some effort to find an angle for both of them that didn’t make Bella feel as if she were being skewered like a wild boar, but it was _lovely_. The halting laughter as they both adjusted, the claiming grip of his hands, the tremble in his lips when he brushed them against hers, even the wet, wicked sounds of their bodies finding their way toward climax was perfect, and imperfect, and _right._

His hips stuttered, and his voice broke in her ear, “Bella—”

She was long past words, only letting out a high, keening moan as the sound of her name in his voice pushed her over the edge. Her legs clenched, every inch of her trembling and pulsing and breaking apart again in a fit of sparks. 

Thorin seemed to have been waiting for her _, the gentleman_ , she thought, as he thrust less carefully into her twice, and a third time, and then growled out his own moan as he spilled inside of her. 

With only the sounds of their mingled breath, and the hot scent of sweat and arousal on the air, she relaxed into the bed, and blinked slowly up at him. 

His chest heaved, skin flushed under the dark curtain of his hair. He kept himself braced over her, his forehead pressed to hers. She ran an absent hand over his arm, curling around the thick muscle. “You’ve made a liar out of me, Thorin Oakenshield.”

His brow furrowed as he leaned back to better see her, though his expression was still one of lazy bliss. “Oh?”

“I told Dwalin I had no intentions of getting tangled up in any emotional attachments on this venture.”

That broke through his happy fog. He stiffened, and not in the happy way. “What?”

She grinned lazily. “You are too easy.”

He scowled, and then a gleam winked in his eyes as he slumped down on top of her, smothering her with his massive bulk. She twisted, laughing, under him, but he merely grunted and curled more closely around her, caging her with his arms.

“Get off, you great brute,” she managed, gasping for air as she tried to shove him to the side. He weighed too much for her to move him more than a few inches.

“Such a sweet, subtle tongue my lady love has,” he murmured, grinning into her hair and nipping at the sensitive tip of her ear. 

“Your lady love is going to suffocate if you don’t get your enormous girth off me.”

He obliged, but only after she began to pinch him in the softest spots she could find amidst all his damn glorious muscle. He slid out of her, and both of them went quiet as the afterglow of their coupling shook through them. He pulled her close to his side and murmured, “How are you feeling?”

“Sore,” she smoothed a hand over his chest, tracing the runic tattoos with care, “or I will be tomorrow.” He stilled, but before he could so much as begin to apologize, she raised herself up to look down on him imperiously. “I’m not new to tumbling, Thorin. This won’t be the first time I get up the morning after a good night to find I’m a bit bow-legged. It won’t be any worse than that first day after riding Myrtle.”

His expression grew sour. “You would compare me to a pony?”

“I said it wouldn’t be worse,” she mused as she pushed him over, draping herself across his chest. She caught his lower lip between her teeth and tugged gently “And the activity is quite a bit more enjoyable.”

“You are a wicked creature, Bella Bright Eyes.” He smoothed fingers down the small of her back, cupped her ass with his large, callused hand. 

“You’re the one who fell in love with me.” She meant it as a tease, but her voice grew soft, breathy, catching a bit. It was new, so new, this budding thing between them, and yet she kept wanting to say it, as if in each invocation it would grow more real, more certain. 

He smiled, a slow, contented slant of his lips. “Indeed I did. What does that say about me, I wonder?”

“Something terrible, probably.”

“And the tumbling—it was good? You have all the same parts as dwarven women, so I assume—”

She bit her lip to stop herself from smiling, and buried her face into his neck. He smelled of sweat and lovemaking, and that indefinable dwarvish sweetness she couldn’t seem to identify. “It was all right. For you as well, with your similar dwarven parts?”

He merely hummed, shifting to wrap his arms more firmly around her. 

They lay in silence for a time, letting their breath return to normal and the intimacy grow sweet and simple. She’d bedded enough hobbits to know that this should have faded by now. The afterglow was nice, always, but it was a temporary thing. After the deed was done, however satisfactory, she got up, cleaned herself off, and went back to her business, with no desire to linger over the stilted conversation or attempts at attachment. Sex was, and had always been, nice, and that was it.

But with every quiet beating of her heart, and the stronger, slower beat of his, she felt that door in her chest opening wide, the same door he’d opened the moment he stepped into her smial all those months ago. It was as if sun were streaming in and filling every nook and cranny of her that she’d never explored, never thought even existed. She was a fluttering thing borne on wings of light, and he was the tether, the firm, sun-warmed stone beneath her.

“I hope you’re not sleeping, burglar,” he murmured, brushing his thumb down the back of her neck. 

She pushed herself up a bit reluctantly, but thrilled at the look of heady promise in his half-lidded eyes. “And deprive your majesty of trying to keep up with a hobbit’s healthy appetite? Perish the thought.”

Before he could flip her over, she straddled his waist, pressing down firmly on his chest when he tried to rise up. She gave him a warning look as she settled down, feeling the first stirrings of his full attention with a satisfied smirk. She ran her fingers through his chest hair, circled the tattoo on his left bicep which represented the crest of his family. Her family. “You were so affronted by the comparison to a pony, it makes me wonder how you might handle being ridden like one.”

“I’d be more comfortable if we stopped this line of thought,” he muttered, rumbling like a great cat as she shifted against his waist, hands coming up to knead her thighs. “Though I’m not opposed to the challenge.”

She kissed him sweetly and said, “As you wish.”


	32. Call Me Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Lover of the Light" by Mumford & Sons](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKkTSi-QYAc&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-&index=32)

In the soft morning light, Thorin listened to the sounds of Bella snoring. Draped as she was over his chest, he could only see the side of her face, brow smoothed and lips slightly parted. He dare not move to wake her, save for the hand trailing gently through her curtain of dark golden hair, catching coils in his fingers and settling them back across her slight, freckled shoulders. 

He’d been awake for some time now, scared out of the deep, wonderful sleep he’d fallen into after thoroughly tiring himself out in the act of pleasing the seemingly insatiable desire of his burglar, by one of his usual nightmares—running down a corridor of rippling, burning air, a fell shrieking following close on his heel. 

The terrors fell from him easily as he traced the soft curve of Bella’s cheek, the supple slope of her shoulder and spine. She was soft, so damn _soft_ , and the freckles he’d once had so much trouble keeping his eyes off were his companions in the faint sunlight, winking at him like golden stars. 

_I love you_. 

Three words, and the entire trajectory of his life had shifted. It had been pulling toward her for some time, but he’d never allowed himself to think she would receive him favorably. He’d speculated, and hoped, and latched onto every sly smile and trilling laugh, every soft touch of her gently callused hands, but he’d never truly thought that she might accept him, let alone reciprocate with such immediate eagerness. 

She shifted and he stilled his hand, smiling when her nose scrunched up and she burrowed her face more firmly into his chest, like he’d sometimes watched her do in camp to her pillow. She would wake soon. The thought sent tiny nerves dancing into his stomach. It was foolish, but part of him wondered if he hadn’t fallen into a dream, if the gentle warmth of her body was a sweet, subtle madness and he would soon wake to find her far, far away. 

Her muffled groan banished his fear. Surely, his fantasies would be less wonderfully mundane. 

“What was that?” he murmured.

With her eyes still closed and her brow furrowed, she muttered, “Stop.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop staring at me, you lovesick idiot.” He merely smiled, warmth flowing into his chest as her bright, bird-black eyes opened to find his. She sighed, blinking slowly as she wiggled up to kiss him. “If you weren’t so adorable, I’d bite you.”

“You wouldn’t hear any complaints from me.”

She hummed a laugh, nudged his nose with hers. “I know. You seemed to enjoy biting.”

“ _Some_ biting.”

She stretched her small, curving body out against him, and he took advantage of her distraction to roll her slowly onto her back. She laughed into his mouth, hands coming up around his neck.

“Good morning,” he murmured into her lips.

“And what a good morning it is.” She shivered as he nipped at the generous skin below her jaw. “Someone’s eager.”

Her sleep-roughened voice sent tendrils of heat curling around his spine, sinking deep into his core. He had wanted her long before last night, had tried his best not to think of her in exactly this position, brilliantly pliant under his fingers, for months, but it was nothing compared to the reality. Every twitch of her stomach and breath from her lips, every sharp tensing of her clever fingers—the sheer wealth of sensation was too much for one mind to comprehend. Her body was a font of arcane knowledge and every time he touched her, every time he made her toes curl and her back arch, he learned more. He had never been a good pupil in his schoolings, not if it didn’t involve metal, forged or otherwise, but he thought he might have found at last the subject he would devote himself to for the rest of his life. 

“Thorin,” she murmured, voice steady even as he felt her pulse jump under his tongue. 

He bent himself to smoothing the dimples in her waist, the subtle pucker where her hips met her thighs. Her skin was clear and soft, like the fuzz of a ripe peach, and tasted far sweeter. 

“Thorin.”

Fingers tightened in his hair, and he looked up reluctantly to see her brow arched. “You’re hungry,” he said wryly.

She smiled, and an echoing thread plucked in his chest. “Am I so predictable?”

“In this alone, love.” 

Red ripened over her cheeks, black eyes turning molten as she guided him back up to her mouth, her thrice-damned mouth. “How likely do you think it is that we might sneak some food up here without the rest noticing?”

He rolled them both over again so she was sitting on his chest, and sighed. “I think it’s more likely that someone breaks down the door in the next few minutes.”

“Surely they would be more afraid of angering their king.” Her eyes danced with a teasing light.

“I think they would be more afraid of angering you, burglar.”

“As they should be.” She pursed her lips. “Are you really going to keep calling me that?”

“I’ve grown fond of it.”

“Because you know it annoys me.” She rolled her eyes, pushing herself up and trying to untangle her legs from the sheets of his bed. They were a mess, half-strewn off the side of the mattress and even ripped in some places. He’d felt some piece of the frame break last night as well, though he shouldn’t have expected such shoddy human craftsmanship not to fail in the onslaught of their coupling. 

He thought about pulling her back, burying himself between her legs for a few more hours as he thoroughly memorized the taste of her pleasure, but he too was hungry for something a little more basic. 

She crossed to the foot of the bed, bending to retrieve her clothes and shooting him a pointed glare. “What are you smirking at?” 

He lifted his gaze from the firm apple of her ass. “Come back and I will be happy to explain at length.”

She snorted, though the color still bloomed on her cheeks—a dusky, orange pink, like the color of sunset across the mountains. 

_I’ve become a bleeding poet,_ he thought, unable to feel anything other than blissful. 

She held up her dress in dismay, showing him a large tear in the side. “Thorin Oakenshield, I asked you _not_ to destroy my clothes.”

“I seem to recall promising to replace it for you.” Somewhere in the act of getting her to bed, he might have relaxed his control. 

“A forest of dresses,” her lips twitched even in her ire, “does me no help right now. What am I going to wear downstairs? Unless you’d like me to parade in front of your Company and all of Lake-town with no clothes on? I wouldn’t mind, but—”

“Surely there’s something you can do to patch it,” he said with a frown, sitting up and moving to the end of the bed.

“It won’t even stay on my shoulders.” She started lacing up her corset, hopping a bit as she wriggled into the tight fit. It was an odd thing, and he couldn’t see the defensive benefit, though it did happily present her breasts to the world in a more obvious fashion and served to accentuate the flare of her skirts. He’d wondered at times how hobbits dressed themselves for war, but confronted with her clothes and the lack of apparent chainmail or leather, he couldn’t puzzle it out. 

“Where do you wear your armor usually?” he asked, some of his attention drawn from staring at her quickly vanishing skin. 

She shot him an odd look. “What armor?”

A horrible thought occurred to him as she finished and faced him. “Tell me this isn’t the only thing you’ve been wearing under your dress for the last five months.”

“I can’t, as it is. What armor could I fit under here? It’s tight enough—”

“Bella Baggins, you have been wearing _nothing_ except that comely bit of reinforced cloth? No leather armor? No chainmail?”

She sighed as his outrage heightened. “Lovely.”

This entire time, she had been wearing no protection. None. Had she expected simply to slide out of the way of swords? The image of a black arrow thudding into her chest, ripping through fabric and flesh with no barrier, assaulted his easy bliss. An irrational fear to pull her to him rose up and tried to strangle him, as if goblins might sprout up from between the wooden floorboards and attack her now, while she was so unarmored. Their journey, dangerous for even battle-hardened dwarrows, wearing as much armor as they could carry, flashed again before his eyes and he suddenly found it difficult to breathe.

Her little chuckle dragged him out of his panic. “You think this is funny?”

“It’s a little funny.” She tied her underskirts, sauntering over to him with a suggestive smile. “You’re nothing if not true to form.”

Thorin swallowed, forced himself to breathe. She was safe. She was fine. She would need armor as soon as he could supply it, but the men of Lake-town had been accommodating so far. Perhaps they made armor for their children. 

“I have a question,” she murmured, crawling up onto his lap and dousing the last fires of his alarm. He ran his hands over her thighs, the small of her back. Touching her, reassuring himself that she was whole, and unhurt, helped. A little. “Last night, you seemed rather upset when I told you Balin had spoken to me.”

He tensed. “I was.”

“Is that only because you didn’t want him interfering?” Her head tilted, spilling curls over her bare shoulders and brushing his own skin where she leaned close. “Or was there something else?”

He was furious with Balin, in a way he knew was somewhat irrational. He couldn’t blame his old friend for looking out for him. And, he suspected, looking out for Bella as well. Balin might have a generous sense of Thorin’s capabilities, but he had never coddled him, or apologized for his failings. He remembered, likely better than Thorin himself, what dragon-sickness could do to a king.

“There are things you should know, if…” He took a deep breath, pulling her closer, as if to convince himself that she would stay, once she knew what might dog his future. “If we are to…”

“Entertain the idea of marriage?” she supplied, her expression gentle.

He smiled despite his tension. “Yes.”

“I would guess from the look on your face that they are somewhat more serious than ceremonial arrangements.”

“You will have your damn flowers.”

“Spoken with such disdain,” she murmured, pressing a kiss to his brow. “Whatever it is, Thorin, you can tell me.”

Nerves ran down his spine at the gentleness of her voice. It still shocked him how much she could change it to her will, how the same voice could hold so many multitudes. “There is a curse which hangs on my family. A curse bound to the treasure in Erebor. We call it dragon-sickness, but it is closer to madness. It…has taken the men of my line, warped their sense of self. Dwarrows love fiercely and greedily, and the line of Durin is the truest strain of dwarrowdem that has ever lived.”

She leaned back, studying his face. “Are you telling me that you’re going to turn into a dragon when you see gold? That would be…interesting.”

He exhaled a laugh. “And simpler, in some ways. What I mean is—gold and treasure is bound to my blood. My grandfather, in the last years of his life, grew so obsessed, so devoted, to his hoard, that he lost himself. Mania, madness, greed, whatever you want to call it—it consumed him.”

She was quiet for a long time, those bright black eyes of hers betraying no judgement or pity. 

_I might not experience it,_ he realized, staring into her eyes, which were more precious to him now than he could ever imagine any gem or metal to be. Perhaps _âzyungel_ was strong enough to fight it, if he could not. _Mahal willing_.

“Do you think you will be consumed?”

He swallowed the urge to deny his fears, to tell her that she was treasure enough for him. She was, of course she was, but he could never know for sure. Not until he was there, and standing before the great wealth of his people. Thrór had been strong once as well. He had found _âzyungel_ with his wife, the High Queen Fréya, and yet…

“I don’t know,” he murmured, hating the tremble in his voice.

Her brow furrowed, and she cupped his face with both her hands. “You are too hard on yourself. If this is truly a curse, then you can’t be blamed for its origin, or its existence.”

“I can be blamed for its victory, if it defeats me.”

“You haven’t lost yet.” She traced the outline of his mouth with her thumb. “I never had the pleasure of meeting your grandfather, but you are not him simply because you share his blood. You are strong, Thorin, and not just in flesh. In your soul.” Her hands dropped to his chest, braced against the crest tattooed over his heart, the twin runes of his siblings, his family. “You’ve come through so much, and you haven’t given up. If this curse comes to claim you, you will fight it, and you will beat it.”

His chest constricted, and a fragile piece of him strengthened under her steady gaze. He kissed her, hands shaking as he cupped the back of her head, tried to pour all his gratitude into his touch. She was more than he could possibly deserve, more than he could ever _hope_ to deserve. 

“I love you,” she murmured, carding through his hair with her fingers. 

His eyes burned with tears, and he took a shaking breath. “As I love you.”

Her breath hitched, and she gave a faint chuckle. “How soft you are, oh mighty king of mine.” She brushed away a few tears which had fallen down his cheeks, kissed his closed eyes. “I think I like this gentler side of you.”

He arched one brow. “With how often you goad me, I had thought you enjoyed my frustration more.”

“I like that side of you as well.” She hummed in consideration, running the flat of her palms down his chest and stomach. “I like all sides of you, actually.”

His eyes found the black scar on her left shoulder, the remnant of the Morgul-arrow which had not faded from her pale skin. He kissed the purplish veins, the dark circle sitting above her heart, and forced himself to relax. “As much as I would enjoy following your thoughts, you were right about the imminent arrival of our Company. I think I hear them stirring below.”

Her lips pursed in disappointment. “Yes, I’m sure your damn nephew will be down here in a moment when he finds out I’m not in my room.”

He grinned, remembering Fíli’s intimation that he planned to offer her _akrâgnana_ when their quest was complete. “Fíli cares for you.”

“He cares too much.”

“You like it.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I tolerate it.”

“You do not fool me anymore, burglar.”

“Fine, I am fond of him, I suppose. That is why I will be very sad when he forces me to kill him out of annoyance.”

“We shall all mourn his loss.”

She got a tentative look in her eyes, her lower lip sucked between her teeth as she studied him. 

“You can’t actually kill him, Bella,” he said with what he hoped was enough solemnity. “I would allow a thorough maiming, but I promised his mother I would keep him alive.”

Her mouth twitched. “Dís, right? That’s your sister’s name?”

He nodded, swallowing a wave of apprehension at telling his sister he intended to marry a hobbit. He held no shame over Bella’s origins, but Dís… His sister had always been more traditional. She certainly was not measured with her tongue, in any case. “I suppose we’ll have to talk about that, at some point.”

“About what?” Bella’s eyes danced with mischief. “You have not asked me anything yet which would necessitate talk of extended family.”

“Right,” he murmured, pulling her closer as the giddy excitement filled him again. He _would_ ask, and he had every expectation of her accepting him. Oh, she would take her time about it, and he would need to bend in all kinds of undoubtedly frustrating ways to please her, but he would do it gladly, and she would agree to be his wife. He could hope for that much now. “I forgot how proper you were about these kinds of things.”

“Thorin, I was wondering—,” she cleared her throat, shying away from his mouth as he tried to kiss her neck. “Well, it’s rather silly, actually.”

His brow furrowed at the tightness in her voice. Again, that hesitation. Bella Baggins was not a woman to get nervous over anything. “I’ve come to love your kind of silliness, Bright Eyes. You don’t have to fear my judgement.”

“Oh, well that’s disgustingly sweet of you,” she mumbled. “I wondered—hobbits have a practice of exchanging, ah, rings, when they intend to marry. I realize we don’t have time or money to do anything so extravagant, but I…” She trailed off, sliding from his lap and padding to her coat. She pulled something from the pocket, and froze in place.

For a moment, something dark passed over her eyes, and she shuddered. Fear lanced through his chest, and he was about to lunge for her, but then she relaxed and straightened again. Held in her hand was not a ring, not _her_ ring, like he had expected, but an…acorn. 

He studied her face as she settled on the bed beside him, tucking her hair behind her ears. “I wouldn’t blame you if you thought this was ridiculous. Goodness knows, you dwarves have no love for the green and growing things of the earth.” She took a deep breath and met his gaze. “I brought this with me from the Shire. I think I—was going to plant it somewhere, here. Something to leave behind when I left, so you all wouldn’t forget me.” She smiled, only a twitch of her lips, and laced with a kind of sadness he didn’t quite understand. “Back when I was trying to convince you all I was worth bringing along, I think I got it into my head that I would force a tree on you out of spite.”

“I think you still would.”

“I would,” she conceded, taking his hand and pressing the acorn into his palm. “I was thinking you could keep it. As a promise, of a kind. That I am waiting for your question.”

There were moments, he knew, that he would remember in vivid detail for the rest of his life. The first time he held Fíli in his arms, the moment Kíli sank his first arrow into the dead center of his target, Dís shrieking in joy when he agreed to teach her basic swordplay as a girl, the quiet horizon over which he and Dwalin looked on their quiet, solemn celebration of maturity. He had a few moments with Bella already, but he had never felt one solidify as it happened before. 

He closed his fingers over the acorn and looked into the depths of her lovely black eyes. “I will treasure it to the end of my days.”

Her blush came back in full force, but she didn’t look away. “Not the end of them, surely. As I would like to plant the thing one day.”

“So it is merely a loan?”

“A deposit.”

He chuckled, feeling again that happiness which he had no right to claim. It was a strange sensation, one that still left him feeling as if he’d tricked the world into giving him some other man’s bliss. “If that is the case, you should have a deposit of your own.” The bead came from his hair quickly, the silver catching the sunlight, eager for its new bearer. 

“Thorin—”

“You are my family,” he insisted. “As I cannot make you one now, and to do so would be tantamount to asking for your hand when I am bound still to the mountain, I ask that you keep this for me, as a deposit.”

She swallowed, her neck bobbing as she took it carefully from his fingers. “I suppose I shouldn’t wear this in my hair.”

The thought made his chest warm and nearly overwhelmed him. Bella wearing his bead, even if he hadn’t made it for her, was something which had only existed in his wilder fantasies until last night. 

She bent off the edge of the bed, rooting for something under her torn dress, and came up with a necklace. He’d seen the simple golden chain before, peaking out of the folds of her dress when he’d let himself stare too closely at places he, perhaps, should not have stared. But he had never seen the key dangling from it. 

“It’s to Bag End,” she murmured, catching his interested gaze. She released the hook and eye and let the bead slide down next to the small key. A key to a green door, on the other side of the world. A part of her he’d only seen flashes of, and that he suddenly wished to know, if only to understand the tightness gathering at the corners of her eyes. 

Would she miss her home? She meant to stay, clearly, for there could be no other choice for him. He was pledged to Erebor. And what did she have there, beyond a Shire full of people who made her feel like a barbed, unwelcome interloper?

_Plenty_ , he reasoned, judging by the ghosts in her eyes. 

“Well, we’re engaged, I suppose.” 

She said it so suddenly, and with so much force, that he couldn’t help but laugh. “You sound thrilled.”

“You’re still _you_.” She smiled, and the light was back in her face. “And just because you got your bead on me, it doesn’t mean you get out of courting. I hear there’s lots that goes into it.”

“So I’ve heard as well. The customs of hobbits will surely be infuriating to perform.”

Her eyes widened with a wicked glee. “You asked Fíli, didn’t you? Oh, you ridiculous old man, you asked your _nephew_ —”

He kissed her, flipping her deftly to trap beneath him as she continued to cackle into his lips. He slid his thigh between her legs as he rucked up her skirt, grinning in satisfaction as her laughter grew breathy and hitched. 

“Breakfast,” she managed as he sucked on the soft flesh of her breast, still half-caged in her useless corset.

“Patience.”

She gave a small whine which sent heat pooling into his stomach, making him twitch in longing. He nearly had her corset off again when a door banged open somewhere over their heads, and a frantic cry echoed through the house. _“Bella!”_

He growled into the crease of her breasts, wanting to burrow down between them and ignore the wider world for another precious hour. 

“I do so hate to be right all the time,” she muttered, sagging down onto the mattress. 

Fíli’s raised voice was joined by others, along with the pounding of more heavy dwarven feet. “You were speaking earlier about killing my nephew.”

“Help me lace this up,” she said, looking amused and annoyed at the same time. “And you will be explaining to Glóin why another one of my dresses is ruined.”

He grimaced, but obeyed, tugging at the laces and cinching up this thing which was about as much protection as paper. He was already thinking through options that would not weigh her down, slight as she was. Chainmail, but light. Mithril would be best, of course. He only hoped there was something in her size stashed away in the vaults of Erebor.

“You’re going to shove me into an iron box, aren’t you?” she muttered darkly.

“Steel is stronger.”

She turned and gave him a sharp look, but whatever retort she might have cut him with was interrupted by his door being slammed open. 

“Uncle, I can’t find—” Fíli might have choked on his tongue, from the sound he made when he saw Bella.

“Who can’t you find, Fíli, dear?” she asked, cocking one hip as she turned to stare pointedly at him. 

His eyes fell to the ground, quickly, Thorin saw with satisfaction. “Could you not have left a note?”

“Oh, of course! Why didn’t I think of that? ‘Fíli, in the event you’ve decided to barge into my room to make sure I was not strangled by my sheets, I would like to inform you that I have spent the evening thoroughly fucking your uncle—’ ”

“All right, that’s enough,” Thorin muttered, rising and throwing a pillow at his nephew. “Out.”

Fíli’s grimace was so deep it looked as if he might be sick, but he backed away with grace as he mumbled, “Sorry to bother you both.”

The door closed just as Dwalin’s voice drifted down the hall. “I told you not to go in there, you stupid boy.”

As the news traveled to the rest of his Company, Thorin sighed deeply. “One day, I will once again know privacy.”

“Oh, is that want you want in a marriage? Privacy?” Bella smiled, picked up her red coat and shrugged it on over her ruined dress. “I so look forward to our separate beds and awkward dinner conversation where we talk about money and weather. Shall I expect to see you once a week, or would that be too salacious for dwarven sensibilities?”

“I’ll just be happy to have a room with a door made of stone that I can secure.” He rose, grinning as her eyes followed his naked form hungrily. “We could make a barricade.”

She sighed wistfully, raking him over with a long, luxurious look. “No. I do need to run errands, and the sooner, the better.”

He slowed in the act of pulling on his pants. “Errands?”

“Right, so this might be awkward.” She met his gaze firmly. “We should have had this conversation before tumbling into bed, but I am not inclined to start a family right now, if you understand my meaning.”

His fingers seemed to turn to lead as he fumbled with the button. “Oh.”

“Yes, _oh._ ” She grinned. “It’s all right. I forgot myself. And it’s not like I prepared for this,” she waved a hand toward him, looking longingly at his crotch, “mess to develop so quickly. I need to get the right things for a tonic, that’s all.”

He nodded slowly, knowing there should be no reason to feel so uncomfortable. They should have thought of this, of… _children_ , but he hadn’t even let himself think that she reciprocated his feelings until last night. The idea of making a family with her, of having a child…

“Thorin,” she said gently, bringing him back from thoughts of a future full of small, laughing babies with her golden curls and soft, fuzzy chins, “you know it might not be possible, right?”

The image died, leaving only a small grief in its wake. Of course he knew that. They might be physically compatible enough to have sex, but child making was another matter entirely. Even Mahal might not know who had created the hobbits, and there was no guarantee that they could have children, different as they were. 

He strode over to her and tipped her face up to his. Her chin trembled, and the vulnerability struck him directly in the center of his chest, where she had carved out a space for herself the day she’d fallen out of the sky to meet him. 

“You might one day,” she murmured. “You are a king, after all. They’re supposed to make babies.”

“As much as I am currently debating the merits of chaining him and his brother to a post for the next century, I have two perfectly competent heirs. My people would ask no more of me in that regard.” He hesitated. “And you?”

“Oh,” she laughed, “I gave up on children a long time ago.”

He leaned down to kiss her, gathering her up into his arms. It would be enough, he knew, to have only this for the rest of his life, this simple bliss which was more glorious than all the wonders of Middle-earth. She was more than enough. 

“You are the love of my life, Bella Baggins,” he murmured, slipping her acorn into his pocket with care. “I would not change any part of you for anything.”

“The love of your life,” she mused, eyes over-bright. “Your ash-ungo.”

He tried not to react, but his eye twitched involuntarily. 

Her brow creased. “I said it wrong, didn’t I?”

“ _Âzyungel_.”

Her lips twitched, and that brightness in her eyes turned wicked. “Ass uncle.”

He dropped his hands from her face and sighed. “I love you,” he said flatly, more to remind himself as she began to cackle, “and I will continue to love you no matter the hardships you put me through, for such is the strength of my love.”

She continued to laugh as he dressed, only stopping when he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder, and carried her down to breakfast. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I've been a little overwhelmed lately, so I probably won't be responding to every comment anymore. Know that I read all of them, and cherish them, but there are just a lot of you these days (which is amazing and humbling and makes me want to go asdfghjkl) <3


	33. A Promise Made

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Heartbeats" by José Gonzales](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-liyr-Xq3E&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-&index=33)

Bella tried hard not to bounce on her every other step. Her mood was brilliantly light, leaping inside of her like a lightning bug every time she remembered the previous night, and that morning, and breakfast. It all swirled together in a skein of lovely thread, colored magnificently in the hues of her own happiness. She hadn’t even threatened Fíli’s life when she sat next to him at breakfast and he made every effort not to meet her gaze. Nor had she thrown her breakfast at Dwalin when he intimated that she best practice some restraint once they returned to the road, as he did not fancy plugging his ears up to block out her nighttime squealing. In fact, she thought she was to be congratulated on only dunking one of Óin’s foul socks into his morning ale instead of shoving her own foot into it. Love had turned her into a soft-hearted saint, and if her old self might have died of outrage, her current self was too busy floating on air. 

Until, of course, she chanced a look at her companion as she wound her way through Lake-town that afternoon. She’d dragged Kíli out of the house with her, ignoring Thorin’s curious gaze when she told him it would do the boy good to get some air. It would, of course, but it wasn’t the main reason for her taking him along on her errands. When he merely nodded in response to her hinting that she needed something to stave off his uncle’s virility and nothing in the way of a smart comment, she knew he needed someone to pry him out of his foul mood. She’d practically handed him a joke, and he’d let it fall without a care. 

“How are you feeling, by the way?” she asked idly, peering at him surreptitiously as she finished purchasing the herbs she would need for her tea. 

There were dark shadows under his eyes, and a blank emptiness to his face which made her nervous. She remembered well the darkness after being pulled back from the brink of death, the fire and the fierce voice which continued to haunt her dreams. 

“Fine.” He shrugged. “My leg hurts, but apparently that’s the new normal.”

“It shouldn’t hurt all the time.” She fought the urge to rub her shoulder. “You’ll get used to it after a while. It will act up every now and again—”

“I know, Bella,” he said gently, giving her a grateful, if weak, smile. “You don’t have to coddle me. I’m grateful to be alive.” His voice trailed off, and his eyes flicked away, but not before she saw a sheen of intense pain in them. Pain which went beyond the physical hurt of his leg.

“I’m not coddling. I just…” She slipped an arm through his, walking slowly at his side. “I want to make sure you’re all right, that’s all. I remember what it was like— _after_. You don’t have to go through it alone.”

He shifted to wrap a slow hand around her shoulders, pulling her in for an awkward embrace. “Thanks. I don’t remember much, but…” He shuddered. “Do you know where that place was?”

“I have no idea.”

“All that black howling and fire…” He grimaced, and then he slowed to a halt, his expression going distant and soft. 

Her chest constricted at the sight, knowing what he must be thinking of. _Who_ he must be thinking of.

“I saw her, you know.” He met her gaze. “She was—shining. She called me back and then…”

She’d had a feeling this was the crux of the matter, the real reason he’d gone so quiet during their time in Lake-town. There was something missing in his eyes now, a light that seemed bound to an elf with autumn hair, and far away in a moonlit forest. “Kíli, do you… I mean, are you—”

He didn’t hesitate. “In love with her?”

Bella smiled sadly.

“I don’t know.” His face tightened, but there was something defiant in his eyes. “I think of her all the time. I worry. I feel like my heart is aching for something it never even had and I just,” he shook his head, smoothing a hand through his hair in frustration, “ _wish_ I knew where she was. I wish I could _talk_ to her. All those hours in the dungeon and we never actually—” He looked at her in apprehension. “You won’t tell anyone about this, will you?”

She frowned. “Of course not. I think _you_ should tell someone, though. I’m sure Fíli’s sitting at the house right now biting all his nails off in worry over you.”

“It’s not as easy as that,” he murmured. “I know what he’ll think, what they’ll all think. I’ve never been normal for a dwarf, and they all like to joke, but this is…”

Bella had guessed as much over the months spent traveling with him. Kíli was undoubtedly a dwarf, but there were small things—his love of the open sky and of fragile, curling things, his determination to be different, when most dwarves simply wanted to be a part of a whole, his admiration and affection for the gentle beauty of the elves—which set him apart from the others. They teased him, never openly or cruelly, about his fine features, the fleetness of his feet. It was close enough to what she’d lived through in the Shire to see the telltale signs of someone long-used to accepting his role as the strange one, the one who lived on the fringes and was never truly _right_. 

Loving an elf would only separate him further. 

She watched him compose himself, trying to smile in his old mercurial way, and bit her lip, mind working through a decision. She’d thought to give him more time, maybe even wait until the matter of the dragon was settled, but it seemed cruel now to keep it from him. “Come on,” she finally said, pulling him with her as she walked down a side street. 

“I thought you got everything you needed?”

“I have.” 

Three days ago she had caught sight of a curtain of red hair and pale skin, just a flash, and she might have missed it if not for the bird which had called and drawn her attention out over a busy square. She had ditched her dwarven guard and trailed the elf for a while as she slid through Lake-town. Bella had wanted to sneak off and greet Tauriel on her own, just in case she’d decided against ever seeing Kíli again, but with Thorin’s confession, it had flown completely out of her mind. Well, she couldn’t just let him waste away thinking Tauriel was indifferent. A bit of matchmaking wouldn’t hurt anyone. _I’m finally growing into the Baggins name_ , she thought with a grim kind of satisfaction. _Meddling in other people’s affairs. Papa would be so proud._

She cast a gaze over the larger square the alley they toed down opened onto, all the leaning, grim buildings looking the same kind of drab and wet at first glance. Ignoring Kíli’s questions, she pulled him on, until they stopped before a house at the edge of the town, right next to the last line of homes before the long black expanse of the lake. 

She knocked a few times on the sodden door, turning to fix Kíli with a hard glare. “I was not here, and neither were you. Nor was the person on the other side of that door, do you understand?”

He stared. “I don’t get the joke.”

She sighed as the door opened a crack. Green eyes peaked out around the frame, followed by a surprised, ageless smile. “Bella, what are you—,” Tauriel started, only to freeze as she caught sight of Kíli. 

“Hello,” Bella said, pleased with the look of instant, smothered excitement that flashed in the elf’s eyes. “Sorry to do this so abruptly. I had meant to visit you before we left, but I figured this would only get worse the longer I waited.” Bella turned to find Kíli staring up at the elf with wide, glittering eyes, mouth hanging wide open. _Hopeless. Truly hopeless._ She cleared her throat, and he straightened at once. 

“Hullo,” he said, too brightly. Bella had to fight against a smile.

Tauriel merely inclined her head, eyes flashing between the pair of them. If an elf could look both betrayed and thrilled at the same time, it would be something like the expression on her face. 

“I’ll sit outside, then, shall I?” Bella pushed the door open gently, catching sight of a sparse interior with only a bedroll and a scattering of weapons, nothing like the lovely chaos of the elf’s home back in Mirkwood. “It’s such a nice day outside, I would love to breathe in some fresh air. Alone.” It was overcast and cold, actually, but she was still flying high and she could bear the grimness if it meant these two could talk alone. 

Tauriel stepped back, swallowing. “Of course. Would you—come in, Master Kíli?”

Kíli made no reaction except to drag in a small, nervous breath. 

Bella had to shove him a bit to get his feet moving. “I figure we have at least half an hour before your brother and uncle show up and drag us back. Best be quick about it.” She looked between them before she closed the door, hoping this was the right kind of meddling. _I do so hope they work things out_ , she thought, giving Kíli an encouraging smile. Any two people who looked at each other with such obvious affection in their eyes should have a chance at happiness. 

Also, though she would never say it out loud, she thought it would be good for Thorin to see his nephew in a happy relationship with an elf. If nothing else, she’d get some amusement out of watching him fume.

She upended an empty crate and sat outside the small house, tucking her feet up under her skirts as she settled in to wait, her bag of herbs sitting on her lap. Her fingers wandered to the bead hanging on her necklace, and she felt a smile creep up over her lips. 

She was engaged. Well, close enough. And while she might want to kick Thorin into the nearest body of water every now and again, she would also want to jump in after him. _The love of his life_. She caught herself sighing wistfully and straightened, glad no one was here to see her mooning over any man, let alone one as unpleasant as Thorin Oakenshield. Her king. 

Now _that_ was something which sent more than happy butterflies into her stomach. Marriage meant becoming a queen, and while she knew, in her heart of hearts, that there was no other place she would want to be than at his side, queenship was…terrifying. 

How on earth would she live up to that role? Dwarves, _dwarrows_ , she corrected herself with a frown, were some of the most stubborn, stoic, entrenched people alive. Would they even accept her? Even the Company still sometimes chafed at her hobbit’s ways. What would a kingdom of dwarves think of her quirks and predilections? How would they react after so many years without anything in the way of a queen, only to find her, sitting like a child on their overlarge throne?

Living under a mountain, with an entire kingdom to care for—it would be a hard life, and she still didn’t know if she was up to it. But she knew what was waiting for her back in the Shire. Bag End, and a life spent wishing she were somewhere else, with the people she loved, and who loved her. 

A flicker of movement caught her eye, and she focused her gaze on a bird hopping down the abandoned street. Its white belly speckled with brown dots, wings tucked into its slight frame, it seemed to be approaching her with caution. 

Bella went very still. It was a thrush. 

Feeling rather foolish, she leaned forward, and murmured, “Hello?”

It cocked its head, flew up to sit on the railing in front of her. “ _Greetings, Belladonna Bright Eyes_.”

Her eyes went so wide she thought they might pop out of her skull. This time, without the sheen of danger and delirium provided by burning trees and imminent death, she heard the meaning of its trill hum in her mind. It was a strange feeling, like a feather was dusting under her nose, and yet she didn’t need to sneeze. “How do you know my name?”

“ _My grand-sire told me about you, and your mother. How you used to leave offerings for him near his nest. You carry the Note in your voice and have our eyes, and so I knew it must be you._ ”

Bella hardly dared to breathe. “The Note?”

“ _Of Yavanna. Her strain of the Song._ ”

That struck a chord somewhere in her mind. She’d heard of Yavanna, perhaps in one of Gandalf’s stories, or in a book she’d read. She was the Giver of Fruit, the Queen of Earth. One of the Valar. 

Bella stared at the bird, wondering if the little thing hadn’t taken a tumble and gotten confused somewhere along the road. It couldn’t be the _same_ thrush, surely. “I—well, I don’t know about all of that, but it’s very nice to meet you, little thrush.”

_“Do you not remember me?”_ It cocked its head, seeming upset. 

“You’re not the same bird who sent the eagles…”

It hopped closer to her, and ruffled its feathers. “ _We do not all look alike, Belladonna Bright Eyes, so it follows that I must be the same bird._ ”

She blinked, and tried to regain her composure. “I’m sorry to imply otherwise. You see, I didn’t know until recently that I could…speak to birds. You’ll have to excuse my ignorance.”

“ _Of course._ ”

Her lips twitched. Of all the strange things… “Might I ask why you sent help for me and my friends?”

“ _I’m not sure. All I know is that it felt right. Just as it feels right to follow you now. The Note resonates in you, as it does in the other one._ ”

“The other one?” The thrush lifted its wing, as if pointing, and Bella looked up to find Bard standing on the other side of the street. She jumped, startling the poor thing into the air. “What on— _damn_ you, you wraith.”

Bard straightened from where he leaned against the side of a house, his expression sliding into something like a smirk. “My apologies, Miss Baggins. I did not intend to startle you.”

“Your intentions are worth little, then.” She frowned as the thrush alighted on his shoulder and he made no more reaction than to hold up his hand and offer it seed. “Why were you skulking in the shadows?”

“Perhaps I thought you would not appreciate my company.”

Unease threaded into her chest. She hadn’t seen much of the bowman since staying with the Master. She’d guessed there was bad blood between them, only compounded by the fact that Bard was apparently the great grandson, or something of that sort, of the last king of Dale. He could have claimed power here long ago, but he hadn’t, for some reason. This seemed to vex the Master, a cloying, unctuous man who was attached to his wealth and wore his greed like a velvet doublet on his chest. 

“You shouldn’t assume.” She eyed him closely. “Were you following me?”

“I was curious why any stranger would venture this far to the edge of my town.” He looked pointedly at the door behind her. “I now have an answer.”

“That is none of your business.”

“Anything which threatens my home is my business.”

She snorted. “Yes, the star-crossed love an elf and a dwarf is clearly a threat to your home. Ridiculous man,” she muttered, rolling her eyes.

His brow lifted. “I see.” A slight smile pulled at his lips. “You keep strange company, Miss Baggins, and bring stranger couplings in your wake. I had thought it strange to see a dwarf in love with anything but gold. Loving an elf, practically impossible.”

Anger rose up like bile in her throat. “You know little and less of dwarves to make such nasty claims about them. Perhaps you should look to your own people’s love of _gold_ to see just how foolish it makes you look to anyone with eyes.”

He studied her for a long time, reaching up idly to smooth a finger over the thrush’s head where it was still perched on his shoulder. “Perhaps you are right.” He inclined his head. “And perhaps that is why I worry.”

“Speak plain,” she snapped. “I’ve no patience for veiled threats.”

“It’s not a threat, Miss Baggins. It’s a plea.” His eyes grew sad, and flooded with concern. “Smoke rises from the Lonely Mountain. The dragon lives, and I fear what you will unleash when your king goes searching for his birthright.”

Tension settled over her shoulders. “I understand.”

“Do you?” He stepped toward her and lowered his voice. “My people have nothing except their homes and the clothes on their backs. If the dragon comes for this, their last refuge, there is nowhere else for us to go. Dragon fire will be their legacy.”

“You would ask my king, my Company, to abandon their last refuge as well?” She swallowed back the lump in her throat, knowing his claim was valid. She’d thought of it enough over the past few weeks to wonder what might happen if they couldn’t kill the dragon. That alone was an impossible task, even more impossible to try and protect these people when it did rise. 

“No, I wouldn’t,” he murmured, looking troubled. Sadness and age fell into his gaze, and he sighed. “You spoke true when you arrived at the Long Lake, Miss Baggins. The world has grown dark, and I fear there is not enough light left to those of us clinging to what little hope we have left. But light should not come from the bonfire of dragons, for such light would burn the world we have left.”

She thought of the Shire, of the verdant hills and overwhelming prosperity, of the safety and serenity, and the vast wealth in the growing things of a life that felt more and more as if it were a dream, and she had awoken to find a darker, colder place just outside its borders. 

“Then those of us who do remain should stick together,” she said softly, swallowing down her guilt and shame for something she’d never even realized was luxury. “Don’t you think?”

It took him a while, but he smiled. “I would like to count you as an ally, Miss Baggins.”

“Just Bella.”

“Bella,” he repeated. “I suppose if you are good enough to gain the trust of the birds, you are owed mine as well.”

She eyed the bird on his shoulder. “You can speak to them too?”

He nodded. “My family has long held the gift.”

“I hadn’t realized it was possible until recently.”

“I imagine it was a startling revelation.”

She laughed. “Something like that.” They lapsed into silence, but still Bella fought against the tangle of unease in her chest. “I’ll do everything I can to protect your town, Bard. I swear that, but my dwarves deserve their home just as much as you do yours.”

He picked up the bird from his shoulder and settled the little thing down on the barrel next to Bella. “I can ask no more of you.”

He started to leave when she said, “You’re much better than that slimy toad of a Master. Why haven’t you made a claim for these people? I’ve seen the way they look at you. I don’t think they’d mind.”

His brow furrowed. “We all like to think we would do better under the strain of leadership, that our hearts are purer, but power is not a gift, Bella. I would not accept that temptation unless I had no other choice. Power corrupts. I hope your king remembers that.”

Bella watched him walk away, her good mood flagging under the weight of darker thoughts. 

Thorin knew that. Of course he did. He’d had years and years to consider the full ramifications of his inheritance, to ready himself for the day he was finally placed in that position of power. Those sad eyes and distant longing spoke to a hard and complicated dream, a dream he’d had to curb time and time again. He would know better than this human, one who was probably not even as old as Bella. 

Thorin knew. 

She sighed, settling back and waiting, eyeing the thrush as it flew up and away without so much as a farewell. That would take some getting used to. Her mother would have been over the moon to learn all her years of offering gifts to the little spirits of the wilds had borne fruit. 

Her fingers reached into the pocket of her skirts, fingering the ring. Something pulled at the back of her mind, like a memory, or a thread of intention. Well, why shouldn’t it feel right? Bella had spent enough time feeling ostracized from the place which should have been her home. If the world was starting to repay her for all those years of loneliness and grief, maybe she should accept it. The birds were her allies, and she’d been given a gift in the form of the ring. A special gift. She’d earned it, hadn’t she? 

_Yes,_ she thought, smiling as she played with the warm band, thinking about slipping it on, stealing through the grimy streets of Lake-town with none of the humans the wiser. _I think I have._

The door to the house opened, and she had to fight a surge of annoyance. Were they done already?

Her mood cleared when she saw Kíli, beaming and skipping out to greet her. “All finished with _your_ errand, then?”

“I think so,” he chuckled, “for now.”

Bella hopped down and collected her things, peering around the door to see a thoroughly blushing Tauriel. “I should be mad at you, Bella.”

“Yes,” Kíli agreed, gazing up at Tauriel even as he lunged for Bella and pulled her into a hug, “you’re an interfering busybody and we should be furious.”

Bella rolled her eyes, but winked at Tauriel. “I should get this one back before he trips into the lake. I’m glad you decided to stay.”

“As am I.” She pursed her lips, eyes glittering. “I cannot stay for long, but I… I think it is safe to assume I will see you again. Soon,” she added, a smile pulling at her lips as she locked gazes with Kíli.

“Better be,” he murmured, smiling. 

“All right,” she said, shoving her things into Kíli’s hands and tugging him back. “That’s enough of that. Shall we tell you when we’re leaving?”

“Please do,” Tauriel said, looking down with another furious blush. “It was good to see you. Both of you.”

Bella thought she might have to step forward and close the door herself, when the elf disappeared, and she and Kíli were left alone on a dirty street. “Come on,” she muttered, grinning as Kíli looked as if he might sprint back and break down the door. “Please refrain from bursting into song.”

“Oh, but there is such a song in my heart,” he sighed, smile turning into such a sweet, gentle thing, Bella had to fight a snort. It was like the melancholy of only an hour before had vanished into thin air, forgotten as easily as one might forget a morning rain. “Bella, it’s like the world is singing.”

_What have I done?_ “Lovely,” she mused, trying not to smile. “You’ll make Bombur green with envy, you will. He used to be the resident poet of the Company, but now…”

“You’re one to talk,” he said, grinning down at her with the full force of his old mischief glinting in his eyes. “I heard Dwalin could barely sleep last night for all—”

“I just did you a favor, you stupid boy,” she said sourly. “Don’t get on my bad side.”

“Did you know, when you asked me…” He trailed off, hesitation and awe entering his eyes.

“Who do you think helped me get you lot of Mirkwood?”

He blinked, and he turned around to look back toward the house as they rounded a corner. “She helped. Of course she did. Of _course_ she helped.”

“I’ll ask you to keep that to yourself. I haven’t quite figured out how to break it to your uncle that an elf got him out of Thranduil’s dungeons.”

“He won’t care.”

Bella frowned up at him.

“He loves you. Nothing else matters.”

“Oh, Kíli,” she murmured, patting his arm. “Of course it matters. Love doesn’t fix anything. It just makes the fighting worth it.”

“But _why_ would you want to fight?”

“Not all of us want to gaze into our true love’s eyes for the rest of our lives.” She didn’t begrudge him the happiness, though, far from it. They made their way back to the Master’s house, Kíli needing to be directed through his blissful delirium as he continued to bang into unsuspecting carts and tables, like his eyes had been filled with sparkles and he could no longer see straight. When they walked into the Master’s main room, finding Fíli and Ori engaged in some kind of card game, and Kíli leapt onto his brother with a triumphant crow and proceeded to reveal Fíli’s cheating cards snuck up his sleeves, she couldn’t help but laugh with him. 

And when Thorin and Balin came down the staircase to find the princes had smashed another table in their rough-housing, Bella knew she was a filthy hypocrite. For when she met Thorin’s gaze, and saw it soften as she walked nearer, she thought she might just be able to look at these sad blue eyes for the rest of her life. 

“You had a successful outing,” he murmured when she tugged him down for a kiss. 

She smiled, and nodded. 

“Kíli seems happier.”

“Ask him yourself, you old gossip.” She laughed as he grumbled, and let herself be pulled into his embrace. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUYS I AM SO SORRY. I got sucked into something the past few weeks and just couldn't find the spoons to update. I swear I haven't forgotten you (or the AMAZING amount of comments, holy shit). Speaking of comments, I am not going to be able to reply to them all. There are too many. Which is such a lovely problem to have, but know that I am reading them all, and I am crying. Thank you all so so so so so much. It means more than I can describe that so many of you love the story. God. Okay now I am gushing, BUT, this is the part where I remind you that the end of this fic is not the end of Bella and Thorin's story. So...just keep that in mind when you read the next few chapters... :)
> 
> You are all lovely <3


	34. Beneath My Lungs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Welcome Home, Son" by Radical Face](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xoz-YIssgg4&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-&index=34)

Standing in the literal shadow of the Lonely Mountain, Bella wondered if this is what all those heroes in her childhood stories had felt—small, and not in the least bit heroic. 

They had made good time after setting out from Lake-town three days ago, spending the second night in the ruins of Dale. All of them had been subdued, except for Kíli, who had rebounded into his good humor with a vengeance and seemed determined to make up for his weeks of solemnity. Bella had sat around the fire, listening to Bofur play his whistle while Nori drummed a soft, catching tune, and thought about Bard. She had thought about all the people living behind them in their floating, driftwood town. She thought about their poverty, and their lack, and as she sat in the ruins of a city which had once been their home, she grew nervous. 

If the dragon was alive, and some part of her knew that it was, how would they be able to stop it? And when it had whet its appetite on them, where next would it seek vengeance? They were a Company of fourteen, and though they were mighty in their own way, and they had triumphed where they should have failed more than a few times, a dragon was not a dungeon. A dragon was not a mindless horde of goblins, or a few spiders, or a trio of dull-witted trolls. She could not trick her way into success this time. 

Thorin had seemed to sense her unease, and if he shared it, he didn’t say, but when he’d pulled her into the shadows of an abandoned building and made love to her slowly, sweetly, she let him distract her. It was clear he needed it just as much as she, and when they lay together for a few moments afterwards, she didn’t voice her concerns. She wouldn’t burden him with her own fears of inadequacy. Not in the least because she knew he would latch onto any misgivings and probably try to send her back to Lake-town wrapped in a thick woolen blanket and a note for someone to keep her safe in a closet somewhere until he came back for her. 

They continued like that, reaching for each other without thought over the next two days, continuing what had started in Mirkwood and letting it grow into something more tangible. She sensed his apprehension, that with each step he came closer to the destiny he’d been walking toward for over a century. He didn’t speak much, and his smiles were tighter, but she didn’t mind. She had her own fears to worry over. 

Her shoulder hurt, more than she let on, and the shadow in the back of her mind had grown larger and more looming. For nearly six months, she had traveled with her dwarves and let them worm their way into her heart. She loved them all with a fierce, aching love, the strength of which she’d not thought to find again after the loss of her parents, and she was about to be put to the test. Whatever was waiting for them behind the secret door, whatever lurked within the entombed mountain, she would face it first. This Arkenstone, this last piece of the puzzle of Thorin Oakenshield, the symbol of his family’s right and ruin—it was hers to find. If she failed now, all of this would be for nothing. If she failed, she might lose one of them, or more. Staring at the rock-face which would lead them up to the secret entrance, cut into the side of the mountain in a geometric, majestic pattern which resembled steps, she tried not to feel unworthy. 

A slightly trembling hand pressed against the small of her back, and she leaned into Thorin’s touch. It wasn’t comfort for her, she knew, but comfort for him. She wouldn’t reject it, though. 

“It’s not lacking for stone,” she mused, trying to pour some confidence into her voice. “I’ll grant you that.”

He grunted in what she thought was supposed to be a laugh. 

“That staircase will be a right terror to climb.” It snaked back and forth up the mountain beside a relief of, presumably, one of Thorin’s relatives. Were they supposed to climb upside down?

“Won’t be so bad,” Dwalin said on the other side of their group, all of them lined up and staring. If they were scared, they didn’t show it, though Bella caught hesitation in the fidgeting of their fingers and the tightness of their expressions. “Not if we work together.”

“I will be carrying none of you,” she said.

A smattering of laughter answered her, and Thorin’s grip smoothed over her hip.

“I keep thinking it will disappear,” Fíli murmured to her left, his eyes distant and tight, as if he were looking back through the veil of time and seeing the full weight of his people’s history in each cutting out of stone.

“Better get up there quick, then.” Kíli jogged forward, tweaking Fíli’s nose as he danced out of range. “First one to the door gets first pick of the treasure!”

That seemed to galvanize them. As one, the Company moved to the secret staircase. It was every bit as difficult as Bella had guessed, and she needed to rely more than once on someone lifting her up to the next step. Fíli, at least, did so with some grace and without any smart comments, while Dwalin and Kíli could not help themselves and took every opportunity to question where her prowess at climbing had gone. Thorin merely took the opportunity to take pleasure in her grumbling, and more than once let his hands wander up into places they shouldn’t have as he helped her, earning him a sharp pinch each time, and more than one threat that she would shove him off the steps to see if he might sprout wings.

When they were all standing on the blank cliff outside the mountain, staring at a blank rock face and waiting, Bella felt another stirring of fear. Secret doors in the side of the mountain sounded all well and good around a cozy, fire-lit table. They seemed a bit silly now they were faced with finding one, with the cold wind reminding them of autumn’s fast passing. If Elrond had been wrong, if this door didn’t show itself… 

She didn’t know what it would do to Thorin. What it would do to all of them. 

They camped and tried to distract themselves with food while the sun set on Durin’s Day. Thorin took to walking the wall, tapping at various places, as if he might trick the door into revealing itself prematurely. With every passing hour, and no revelation of this keyhole or door, his brow grew darker, his mouth carving its own deep frown in the stone of his face. 

Bella found herself sitting by the fire, watching him as she peeled carrots and trying not to show her nerves. 

“So, should I start calling you ‘aunt’?”

She scowled at Fíli sitting beside her, stitching a hole in his spare pair of pants. “Not if you’d like your eyes to remain inside your head.”

He grinned. “When we’re family, you’ll have to stop threatening my life.”

“Oh, will I? I seem to recall you swearing to embed an axe into Kíli’s gut if he didn’t stop singing last night.”

“Has he proposed yet?”

“Kíli? Yes, quite a few times. Although the last was because I managed to untangle a bit of weed from his fishing lure, so I’m not sure how serious it was.”

Fíli nodded in consideration. “I suppose I should talk to him about stopping that now. Uncle might not appreciate the joke as much as you do.”

“Fíli,” she muttered, trying to keep her voice down, “I care for you a great deal, but if you continue to make fun—”

“I’m not making fun,” he said at once, looking up with alarm. “I’m serious. You’re my friend, Bella. I just wanted to make sure you’re getting a good deal.”

She blinked and snorted, drawing a few curious glances. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Is it so ridiculous for me to look out for you?”

“He’s your _uncle_.”

Fíli shifted and cleared his throat uncomfortably. “That does make things a bit awkward, but… I mean, I know him. He’s—stubborn.”

She had to cover her mouth as laughter threatened to spill from her lips. She felt Thorin’s gaze on her cheek, but didn’t look over toward him, keeping her eyes purposefully on her carrots. “You don’t have anything to worry about, Fíli.” She smiled, pulling out her necklace and showing him the bead. “See?”

He scowled. “You know that’s not how a proposal is supposed to work.”

“He hasn’t _proposed_ , lughead. I wouldn’t let him. Not yet.”

Fíli seemed mollified, but he continued to watch her closely, looking up every now and again from his stitching. “But you want him to?”

“Eventually.” She swallowed a surge of nerves and tried not to let the rising heat over her cheeks make her voice go squeaky. Throwing the last of her carrots into the basket before her, she leaned back, cleaning off her father’s knife with the edge of a dress Glóin had mended for her, with lips closed so tightly they might have been sewn shut themselves, pointedly _not_ asking how the skirt’s stitching had come nearly undone overnight. “I still don’t know what he’s thinking,” she added softly. “I’ll make a horrible queen.”

Fíli stilled and let out a loud, bellowing laugh. 

“Excuse me,” she said indignantly as he tipped backward. His laughter echoed over the hills, and more than a few dwarves shot him disapproving looks. They were supposed to be hiding. “What on earth is so funny about that?”

“I hadn’t thought—” He wiped a tear from his eye. “Mahal save me, you’re going to be _queen_. For some reason, it never crossed my mind. Ah, that’ll make life interesting.”

She watched him compose himself, trying not let the shame in her gut grow. She thought the idea was ridiculous too. It shouldn’t make her feel so feeble to see him lose his mind at the very thought of her running his kingdom. 

“Oh, Bella,” he murmured, humor dying straight off as he caught sight of her face, “I didn’t mean it like that, I swear.” He set down his stitching and reached for her hand. “I laughed because I can’t wait to see you ordering around a bunch of dwarrows whose heads have been shoved up their own asses so long they’ve forgotten what the sun looks like. The dwarflords won’t know what hit them.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” 

“It should. Even Thorin couldn’t bully them into working together back in Eren Luin. My mother was the only one who ever had a talent for it, and she’s far more patient than you. I’ll be surprised if you don’t scare them into submission within a month.” He grinned in encouragement. “I think you’ll be marvelous.”

She studied his face, pursing her lips. “You’re just saying that.”

“I’m not.” His tone became dry. “If anyone could finally get the Longbeards to fall in line, it would be you. I, for one, am thoroughly looking forward to seeing what you’ll do with the lot of them. I just ask that you let me be present the first time you threaten to cut one of their beards off.”

Thorin was kind enough about it, too kind, she thought, but she was afraid of speaking too much about this topic. It was so much that he would ask her in the first place, and with his own doubts… Fíli had always been so easy to talk to. There was a certainty in knowing he didn’t think her being a queen was silly. After all, he’d inherit after Thorin. He had more of a stake in her mucking up his kingdom than she did. 

She exhaled and tried to sound sour. “I’m so glad my anxieties are amusing.” 

“You have so few of them,” he said, patting her knee. “It’s nice to remember your courage has limits. Makes one not feel so feeble.”

They sat in silence for a time. She gave Thorin a small smile when he looked over at her, a question in his eyes. _I’m to be queen._ Fighting a dragon seemed almost simple in the face of that. 

“And you?” she asked, seeing Fíli’s eyes go tight as he studied the blank stone wall. “You’re here, at the end of all that questing. Is it everything you hoped it would be?”

Fíli had put on a good show of courage the past few weeks. What with Kíli being hurt and withdrawing into himself, and Thorin being…distracted, Fíli had shouldered the brunt of the Company’s concerns about finally reaching their home. He took to it well, showing a quiet, gentle kind of strength, a steadiness that the other dwarves acknowledged and accepted with gratitude. Thorin had taken to watching his nephew when he started nudging the others into line, and Bella could see the pride in his eyes. 

But she also knew Fíli, perhaps a bit differently than the others. There was something off in the confidence of his voice. Something forced. He wasn’t as easy to riddle out as his brother, who wore his emotions on his sleeve for anyone who knew enough to look. Fíli didn’t share of himself, though he had a generous heart, and she knew more than most how that might cause someone to retreat and suffer in silence. He’d go grey before she would, at this rate. 

He didn’t look at her, but his grip tightened, snapping the needle in two. He sighed, and set it down, finishing off the thread and biting it with his teeth. The youth seemed to slough off his face as an older, more distinguished nobility formed in its place. _Very like his uncle,_ she thought with a bit of sadness. Thorin was older, and had grown used to this kind of responsibility. Fíli was barely an adult. She’d need to talk to Kíli about dragging him into more foolish trouble, when all of this was over. 

“Not sure yet,” he said softly, eyes going distant as he stared up at the blank stretch of rock. “Ask me again later once you trounce that dragon.”

“All right.” She leaned her head on his shoulder, and he draped an arm around her. Even if she wasn’t hopelessly in love with Thorin, she might have wanted to stay for this. It was nice having something like a brother. Family. 

“Bella?”

“Yes, Fíli?”

His voice dropped to a whisper. “Whatever you did for Kíli, thank you. You saved his life, sure, but whatever you said to him to bring him back… I owe you.”

She eyed the dwarf in question, currently fletching arrows with a delight that seemed almost inappropriate faced with the solemnity of his companions. He was actually humming. Beside him, Glóin looked close to shoving him off the mountain. “No,” she said, grinning fondly, “you don’t.”

He sighed, but his grip around her shoulders tightened. “You are the most stubborn person I have ever met, Bella Baggins.”

 

~  ✧ ~

 

Sunset came, and Thorin stared at the stone wall with a ferocity he usually reserved for the heat of battle. For five hours, he had indulged in his patience. For five hours, and one hundred and seventy years, he had waited for this moment, for this sunset. Every piece of him, even the parts which belonged to his family and friends and Bella, to his people, was bent toward the stone wall in front of him—silent, unmoving, eternal.

And when it didn’t reveal its secrets as the last of the sunlight faded, and he was left with nothing but a useless key and a Company of dwarrows staring at him with fragile, burning hope in their eyes, he thought he might break down and cry. 

Was it all a joke? Had Mahal sent him on this quest to punish him for all those years he’d spent selfishly fueling his own self-loathing? Had he failed his people, _again_ , after traveling so long on this maddening road? Perhaps this was the final, immobile stone laid in his path, the last sign that his Maker had judged him, and found him unworthy. 

“The light. It’s gone,” Fíli murmured somewhere behind him, and the pain in his voice was almost too much to bear. He had lost his nephew his birthright. For eighty-two years, he had kept the boy at arm’s length, trying to teach him strength and self-reliance, and it was all for nothing. 

All of that time—wasted.

“No,” Balin said firmly. “This can’t be it.”

“It’s gone,” Ori echoed. 

“But the signs,” Glóin cried. “They were all pointing—”

Dwalin roared in anger. “That witch-elf _lied._ ”

“Oh, honestly,” Bella said, stepping up to Thorin, her voice the only thing which might draw his gaze now. Above the growing anguish of his companions, her voice broke the dark chorus with a trill of light. “You are all so _dramatic_.” Her bird’s eyes looked pointedly from him to the wall. “Elrond read the map by the light of the moon, right?”

Thorin could not find his voice, and so he simply nodded. 

Her eyes softened. “Well, then let’s wait for a moment before losing our heads. The last light might refer to the sun, _or_ …”

As if the sky heard her, the clouds parted, and a shaft of moonlight illuminated the wall. Faint traces of white light ran up through the black stone, outlining an intricate, geometric pattern—the solitary mountain ringed with seven stars, resting atop a single diamond at its heart. The sign of his house. The Mark of Durin. Khuzdul runes glowed in that same lettering, and though he could not read the archaic speech of his forefathers, he felt their truth ring in his bones. 

The map had led them true. 

Bella grinned and rose up on her toes to kiss his cheek. “All this stress is not good for your health, you know.” The Company was silent as she stepped forward again, ran her eyes over the outline of the door. “Ah- _ha_.” She winked at him, and he felt his heart swell as she reached out and knocked twice at a small indentation in the wall—shaped perfectly to fit the key clutched in his clammy, paralyzed hand. 

_When the thrush knocks twice…_

His feet were rooted in place. He felt time stretch on in the single breath he took to steady himself. The keyhole, the key, and the knocking of a thrush, his _âzyungel_ with her bird-black eyes—and his kingdom sitting on the other side of the door. 

The last time he had been this close, his world had been dragon fire and panic. Death had been his companion, and fear so thick he had breathed it in with the smoke of his burning home. The memories lapped up against him, hollowed out the cavern of his chest, leaving him empty, and waiting. 

Slowly, it refilled with the quiet breathing of his dwarrows, his brilliant, brave dwarrows—Balin’s murmured prayer to Mahal, Dwalin’s rasping grip on his axe, Fíli’s slow and clenched breathing, Kíli’s muffled excitement escaping in a whistling hiss, and the rest, fidgeting with nerves and bound-up excitement. Whatever he found on the other side of this wall, it was theirs. He knew that now. He had spent so long wanting it for himself, to prove that he had not failed, but it had never been his, just as it had never been his father’s or grandfather’s. It belonged to the men who would have given their lives to see him back on the throne which in turn belonged to his people. It belonged to Dís, presiding over their people in the Blue Mountains while he fled into the night with all her hopes and dreams and the last members of her family. It belonged to Frerin, dead on a battlefield in a useless war to reclaim yet another piece of their history which had been lost to malice and greed. It belonged to the ghosts of his father and grandfather, may they watch over him now, seated as they were at his Maker’s side, with his brother. It belonged to his mother, whose bones were still trapped behind these thick walls which had borne him and whose voice still strengthened him on those infrequent nights he beat back the shadowed past. 

It belonged to Bella, standing with a small, warm smile, waiting for him to step forward. It belonged to his queen.

“You going to open the door, lad, or do you need a punt in the rear?”

He grinned, blinking tight eyes to nod solemnly at Balin. His old friend’s eyes were rimmed in the same silver glow of the rock face, and Thorin was struck by how young he looked, even with his shock of white hair and his lined, weathered face. “Aye. I might.”

Thorin drew one last deep breath, stepped forward, and fitted the key slowly into the keyhole. His fingers brushed against the stone, stone he knew as well as his own skin, just as they had all day, trying in vain to find this very spot. He turned the key’s handle, and the slow, resonant click which greeted him was the sweetest sound in all the world. A puff of air blew the hair from his face. The stone rumbled beneath his feet, and shifted—and he pushed the door open.

He had been prepared for the stale stench of decay, the rank odor of a dragon’s stinking malevolence. He had not prepared for the immediate familiarity of clean cut stone and ancient, cool wind. It curled into his nostrils, the same smell which filled his kinder dreams and kept him moving over centuries and leagues back to this place. It smelled of sharp steel and long-buried water, of a resonant hum which echoed through all things touched by Mahal and made for his sons alone. The deeper threads of jewel-bright river-veins, and the ageless void which opened somewhere deep beneath his feet. Where he would return one day, at the end of his days, when his work was done and his heart was full. He felt it all. He felt his home.

“I know these walls,” he murmured, his own voice sounding deeper and richer as he breathed in the air of his ancestors. “These halls of gleaming gold and shining silver, of mithril whiter than the moon.” He stepped forward, spurred on by an aching urge to enter, to remember, to _know._

In the dim light, he saw the crest of Durin seated above the secret entrance, an entrance which had only ever been a whim in his child’s mind. 

“ _Here lies the seventh kingdom of Erebor_ ,” Óin murmured behind him. “ _May the Heart of the Mountain strengthen her king, and unite all of dwarrowdem in her glow._ ”

“The Arkenstone.”

Thorin tensed, dragged out of his careful examination of the carvings inside the hall, the same, the _same_ from his memories. He turned. He had traveled farther than he intended, followed by the rest of his Company into the dark, stone-fresh halls. All save one.

Bella stood on the ledge outside the door, staring past and through him. He could not see her face clearly, shadowed by the moonlight behind her, but there was a brittle, hesitant thread in her voice. 

She cleared her throat as they all turned to look at her, seeming to sense the same realization building in Thorin’s mind. A realization which made all the careful, unfurling warmth inside him freeze and crack. In the moonlight she looked small, and frail. Panic reared up like a serpent in his chest and he found he could not breathe. 

“Well.” She took a deep breath, only exaggerating the gentle, beloved outline of her figure. A figure which was, suddenly, all too precious, _far_ too precious to lose. “If you’d all kindly budge up, I’ve a dragon to outwit.”

 

~  ✧ ~

 

“There must be another way,” Dwalin muttered, pacing outside the secret entrance to the mountain. 

Bella was seated squarely between Kíli and Bofur, as if by keeping two dwarves on either side of her might discourage her from rising and entering the mountain.

“I might remind you that this is why you hired me in the first place,” she said sharply, her patience fraying after nearly an hour of discussion in which she had been allowed to engage in very little. Discussion which was, frankly, infuriating.

“It was a stupid idea then,” Fíli said without looking at her, staring down at the rock with a mulish expression. In fact, he had done his best _not_ to meet her gaze since she’d been marched back from the entrance and told, in no uncertain terms, that she would not be sneaking into the mountain alone. “It’s a stupid idea now.”

“You didn’t object at the time.”

“I didn’t want to be smacked over the head with a frying pan.”

“What makes you think I won’t do that now?” she asked through gritted teeth. 

Ori edged farther away, holding tight to the grips of his pack while their pots and pans clanked invitingly. 

“The lass is right,” Balin said with unease, his deep frown making his eyebrows twitch like little caterpillars. 

She met his gaze in surprise, seeing unease and concern, but, strangely, determination.

“You’re going to let her waltz in and root around willy nilly?” Dwalin asked incredulously, rounding on his brother. “With a _dragon_ in there?”

“No one is going to _let_ me do anything,” she said, shoving Bofur off as she surged to her feet.Kíli, bless him, did not try to restrain her. “This is quite enough.” She ignored the rest of them as she walked purposefully toward Thorin where he sat beside their campfire. He had said almost nothing, letting the rest of them bully her and scold her, with him sitting silent as the stone at his feet.

He stared into the fire, his jaw clenched and his eyes shadowed. 

She grabbed his chin in her hands and forced him to look up at her, trying to find some level of peace in her roiling chest. “What did I tell you?”

His expression didn’t waver, but she saw understanding in his eyes. 

“ _What did I tell you_ , Thorin Oakenshield?” She shoved him, not enough to hurt or mean more than an emphasis. “I am not about to start changing—”

“I am not asking you to change,” he said, breaking his silence of nearly an hour. “I am asking you to see _sense_.”

Heat burned up her cheeks. “ _Sense_?” she repeated, her voice low. 

“Bella, it is not safe.”

“What part of any of this has been safe?” She laughed, the sound harsh, but low. Even she knew that shrieking so near the mountain was foolish. With the door open, the dragon seemed to be lurking just around the corner, casting them all in a shroud of fear and urgency, as if it might pop out and swallow them all at any moment. “What part of running from wargs or goblins or _orcs_ has been _safe_?”

“Exactly,” he bit off in a strangled voice. “Need I remind you how many times you have almost died?”

“Almost,” she said stubbornly.

“Almost is more than enough.” His expression flickered between panic and dread, and she tried to understand his hesitation. She knew he cared about her. She knew he only wanted to protect her. 

But this, after everything, was unbearable. It felt like her relatives telling her to stay home after her mother’s death, telling her to move on with her life and sit quietly in Bag End while the world moved on and she was left screaming in the silence.

She straightened and stepped back, her fingers balling into fists inside the pockets of her coat. The warmth of her ring was her only comfort in that long, silent moment. “You need the Arkenstone. I am the only one who can get in undetected. That is the end of this discussion.”

“You’re not the only one who’s good at sneaking around,” Fíli said, stepping up to them and folding his arms, as if that might give his decision more weight. “Nori’s just as good at keeping quiet. Kíli’s fine when he remembers to shut his mouth. You don’t have to throw yourself into harm’s way just to prove you’re brave.”

She swallowed her immediate anger, keeping her eyes locked on Thorin’s face. If she turned now, she would start yelling, and that would certainly wake the damn dragon. The ring pulsed inside her palm, and a calm certainty passed over her. 

Thorin would refuse her, insisting that she be kept behind, apart from the rest of the Company. Dwalin and Fíli would guard her as if she were some wild prisoner, or she didn’t know what was best for herself. Thorin would try to convince her it was for her own good in that lovely, low voice of his. To keep her safe. All he wanted was to keep her safe. She had to understand, didn’t she, that she was too important to lose. 

And like a scroll unraveling into her future, she saw herself locked away from the world in a fortress of stone, caged in a girdle of steel, sitting in silence—safe, secluded, and alone. He would bury her under the mountain to protect her, and she would never again see the sun. 

Suddenly Balin’s story grew heavy inside her heart, and this new, more frightening possibility opened up beneath her like a yawning void. 

_You were not made for the stone._

Her thoughts must have played over her features, for Thorin’s brow furrowed, and he reached up to hold her face in his large, callused hands. His voice was a broken thing, and that brought her back from her echoing mind. Somewhat. “I can’t lose you.”

She shoved her fears aside, knowing she was just angry and letting the worst grow wings. He would never do that to her. He knew her too well. He loved her too much. Of course he did. 

“Then _don’t_ ,” she murmured, trying not to make it sound as if she were giving him an ultimatum. But…wasn’t she? If he could not let her go now… “Wait, and if you hear screaming, you can come rushing in and get yourself roasted by a dragon.” He winced, but she pressed on. “We both know that I am getting into that mountain one way or another. I’d rather not do it in spite of you.”

His eyes flicked down, staring at her pocket for a long moment. 

“Thorin,” she said again, trying to keep her voice clear and calm, “I’m not about to go running after my own death. I’m cleverer than that. Someone needs to see what kind of mess you all left down there. And if I can find your Arkenstone now, maybe we can use it to get help. Fourteen mighty warriors we may be, but I don’t like our odds.”

“She’s right.” Balin sighed deeply. “Daín would get off his rump for the Arkenstone, if for nothing else. They could be here in a few weeks, and we might have a chance at killing the old wyrm for good.”

She met the old dwarf’s gaze, knowing he wasn’t helping her for her own benefit, but grateful all the same. His eyes narrowed, uneasy, though she thought, for some reason, his misgivings weren’t directed at her.

“You don’t have to do this, Bella,” Fíli repeated, though there was a dull sheen to his voice now, as if he knew he had lost this fight. “It doesn’t have to be you.”

“Any one of us who goes in there alone will be at risk.” She arched an eyebrow at him. “Who would you send, Fíli, if not me?”

His jaw clenched, but his gaze was steady. “I can—”

“No,” she said at once, echoed by Thorin and Dwalin without a moment’s hesitation. 

Kíli shoved his brother in the shoulder, his eyes dark and hard. “Don’t be an ass. Bella’s more than capable of coming back unscathed. She crept through a bleeding goblin horde, went unseen in the Woodland King’s realm, which should have been impossible—or have we all forgotten that?”

_Bless you, you beautiful boy,_ she thought with a grim smile, meeting Kíli’s fierce certainty with relief. 

“I’ll go,” Nori said gruffly, “but she’s better than I. Anyone with half a brain would see that.” He blinked placidly at Thorin. “No offense meant, your majesty.”

“Right.” She stepped away from Thorin. “I’ll start in now, then. The longer we wait, the more likely the dragon will—”

Thorin’s hand closed over hers as he rose, pulling her into a tight, almost bruising hug. He pressed a hard, possessive kiss to the top of her head. “The moment you see it stir, you run.” His voiced dropped low enough so that only she could hear. “I don’t care about your bleeding ring. You will _not_ play the hero, Bella Baggins. You will be cowardly, and craven, and you will come back to me.”

She swallowed the lump in her throat, gripping him just as tight, even as her shoulder protested. “You don’t give me orders, your majesty.”

“If you are falling back on your contract, then I damn well will. You are in my employ, burglar, and as your employer, I will tell you _exactly_ what to do.”

She twisted, pressing a hard kiss to his mouth. “At least pretend to have faith in me. I’m frightened too, you know.”

“You have my faith, my hope, my love,” he murmured. “Anything you wish. It’s yours. I would give you my soul, if I could cut it out and still breathe.”

Her eyes closed and she let herself linger, the pitiful fear squirming up inside her like worms after a rain shower. In the face of their misgivings, she could be brave, but now…

Who was she to think she could face a dragon’s lair and come out alive? She was nobody—a little girl playing at being a warrior. She was a fool.

Bella breathed out, and in, the smell of Thorin’s coat filling her nostrils, and straightened. “Enough fussing.” She clenched and unclenched her hands, fingering the pommel of her sword while her fingers slipped around her ring. Warmth flickered over her skin, and she felt a sudden, mad urge to shove Thorin away. He was still clinging to her, as if he had changed his mind. “Thorin,” she said sharply, pouring some bite into her tone. If she didn’t do this now, she would never do it. 

He let her go, searching her face as his expression darkened. “Promise me you’ll come back, Bella.”

Anger and frustration vied for dominance in her chest, but she felt the concerned stares of her Company on her back, and remembered how she felt when she watched Kíli writhe in pain with a black arrow sprouted from his leg. They were her family. They had a right to be worried.

“I promise.”

His jaw clenched, but he pressed one final kiss to her brow before letting her go. 

She half-thought Fíli might lunge for her, but he simply rocked back and forth on his heels, hands crossed so tightly over his arms, his knuckles were white as bone. He was holding himself back, she realized with small smile. He was letting her go, despite everything his body was telling him. “When you get back,” he murmured, “we are going to talk about finding you another hobby. I will make it my mission to see that you never risk your life again, so help me, Mahal.”

“But I’m so good at it,” she tried to joke, but her voice came out shaky. 

He simply nodded, and kept silent. 

“I think you’ll do great, Bella,” Ori piped up from behind his brothers. 

Bella smiled. “Thank you, Ori, dear.”

“Don’t get barbecued, please,” Bofur said as he wrung his hat between his hands. “I have plans to trick another song from you. ’Twould be a shame to lose a voice like yours.”

Dwalin stood in front of the secret entrance, face carved of the same unrelenting stone which made up the mountain. “Remember not to hold your sword like a spade,” he muttered. “You’re fast and you’re smart, but you don’t know shit about fighting.”

“I know some things.”

“No.” He muttered something under his breath in dwarvish which sounded faintly like a curse. “You know nothing. Don’t get clever. Don’t get cocky. For once in your life, lass, be _cautious._ ”

When he didn’t move, she tapped his large, bulging arm with the point of her sword and gave him a sharp look. 

“This is a bad idea,” he muttered, stepping aside at least.

“For your sake, I hope you’re right.” She flashed him a grin, stirring up the remnants of her courage and squaring her shoulders. “Because when I come back with a dragon’s head and this lovely stone you’re all so fussed about, you’re going to never hear the end of it. I plan on lording this over for the rest of your life, Dwalin Fundinson.”

He didn’t smile, but he shook his head in defeat. 

The hall beyond the secret entrance was so dark, she could barely see more than a few feet in front of her. It smelled clean, much cleaner than the goblin caves had smelled, though that was only to be expected. Dragons were monstrous things, but they took care of their hoards. She took a few purposeful steps inside, turned, and met Thorin’s gaze. 

He had joined Dwalin at the mouth of the secret entrance, gripping the frame hard enough that he might actually crack the stone. All the wonder and care he’d shown when they opened the door had gone, leaving only sharp fear. She had known, then, that she would do anything to win back his home for him, even if it meant losing her life. 

_My home now, too,_ she thought, a spark of realization sliding down her spine and pouring new certainty into her heart. She hadn’t been able to claim a home for a while now. Bag End had stopped being anything more than a house when her mother had died. 

She could do this for him, of course, but she could also do it for herself. She had said as much on the cliff outside the goblin caves. 

With a smile that was no longer forced, Bella walked the length of the hall until it bent left. She turned back one last time before she rounded the corner, winked at Thorin, and slipped the ring onto her finger. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brace yourselves, babes. Shit's about to get real.


	35. Golden Happiness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Gold" by Arum Rae](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHn_e7ye4CQ&index=35&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-)

Numbness ate at the edges of Bella’s mind, but with it came clarity, and stillness. She journeyed down into Erebor on silent feet, and imagined herself nothing more than a ghost, a phantom on swift wings, insubstantial as a cloud. With each step her heart slammed a staccato beat against her rib cage, as if to remind her how fragile it was. Every echoing breath, every scuff of her toes, seemed to ring out loud and clear like a struck bell. In all the stories Gandalf had told her as a child, a dragon’s senses were keener than you would expect. But Smaug had lived on his own for almost two centuries. Surely they’d grown a bit dull after all that time rotting in here alone. She began to lose track of time, and when she still hadn’t seen anything but smooth stone halls and shadowed doorways, she started to understand the scope of this place—how massive it truly was.

A faint light shone at the end of the corridor, and Bella froze, blinking to make sure her mind wasn’t playing tricks on her. But there it was, a glittering yellow light cutting through the dimness of old, forgotten halls. She clutched her right hand to her chest, as if pressing her ring close might somehow increase its efficacy, and made sure the grip on her sword was true. 

_Still need a name for you_ , she said silently, talking to the sword to quiet the frantic thoughts crowding into the back of her mind. _Dragonbiter’s a good one. Or maybe—_

The hall ended in a dazzle of golden light. A mountain of gold sat in the belly of Erebor. Hills and valleys of brilliant jewels, glinting with light—an entire glittering world hidden from the one above. She stared with her mouth ajar. She was wealthy, even by Shire standards, but she couldn’t fathom any reason to hoard this much gold. It must be more wealth than anyone had seen in living memory. Even the elves, in their beautiful, effortless homes, could not claim this much affluence. It was _too_ much. 

The light shone from one shaft far in the back of the cavernous hall, somehow reflecting off the mounds and mounds of coins and illuminating the full scope of wherever she’d found herself. She remembered faintly something about mirrors, Balin reproaching her for thinking the dwarves lived in complete darkness. She couldn’t comprehend it. 

“Impossible,” she whispered before she could stop herself. 

The massive hall was still for the space of two heavy beats of her heart, and then a sound like rushing water began to rise. In a wave, the ocean of gold shifted, the sound growing more and more cacophonous as lifetimes worth of treasure shifted in a great, susurrus heave. 

Bella was frozen, grip going slack over her sword. Only because of Dwalin’s drilling did she manage to keep it from clattering to the ground. 

Ten seconds. That was all it had taken for her life to be forfeit. 

_I was a fool._

Her heart stopped beating entirely when, sitting in the single shaft of moonlight, a great eye blinked slowly open. A black slit ran down the center, wreathed in fiery yellow—and something inside Bella quailed in terror. Sweat broke out over her chest and back, and it was all she could do to keep her mouth clenched tight. 

Fear had her in a vice, and through the fog of the ring’s magic, she thought she felt awareness trickle down her spine like cold sap. An eye, wreathed in flame. An _eye—_

The dragon, for what else could it be, shook a last mountain of gold from its great red snout. “ _Who enters my realm?_ ”

The voice whispered silkily into her mind, and Bella stumbled back against the wall. The dragon’s head whipped toward her lightning-fast, like a snake, even though its head was larger than most hills. Coins flew around it like water droplets off a horse’s snout.

“ _Where are you, ghost?_ ”

Bella’s heart kicked back into a pounding, frantic rhythm. It was speaking inside her mind. Just like that voice had spoken inside her mind, when Azog had met her gaze in the midst of the burning trees. It was foul, and evil, and dripped with eagerness for death. 

She’d never even had a chance.

“ _You hide well, interloper_ ,” the dragon almost purred, lifting its great, sickening bulk from the gold. Coins and jewels stuck to its side like another set of scales, armor worth the entire wealth of a dwarven empire, donned in a sick perversion of its true purpose. “ _Come into the light, so I might see you. It is rude to trespass unannounced._ ”

Through the dumb, screaming panic slowly working round her throat like a vice, she felt a stirring of anger. 

Rude? It called her _rude_?

“ _So long have I slumbered alone. Won’t you share your knowledge, before you share your life?_ ” Its great eyes shrank to slits in satisfaction as it slid across the ground. “ _Perhaps I shall wait before eating you. Make of you a pet. You smell… strange. I have not smelled one like you before. But there is something…_ ”

Bella swallowed, took a deep breath, and called, “My life is my own, wyrm. You shall not have it.” Even through her trembling lips, her voice rang true, echoing through the empty halls.

_What am I doing, what am I doing?_

The dragon paused, tilting its head. Its lip curled, revealing vicious, barbed teeth longer by twice than she was tall. “ _What a lovely voice. You are a brave little bird, to sneak into my home and insult me._ ”

“This is _not_ your home.” She looked down, casting her eyes desperately over the massive hoard. If she was going to die, she might as well try to find this damn stone. Maybe she could throw it to Thorin as the dragon bit her in half. But _how_ was she supposed to find one stone in all of this? “You stole it. By rights, anyone can claim this place.”

A low chuckle whispered across her mind, making her shiver as she edged as quietly as she could down the staircase to the golden sea. “ _And are you going to steal it back?_ ” The dragon arched its back like a cat. “ _You’ll have to show yourself then. Or will you be craven and challenge me from the shadows?_ ”

“You’re very confident for a beast I found napping.” She paused just before stepping down onto the gold, seeing the dragon spread its claws through the coins, sifting like one might sift flour. 

As if it sensed her intention, it slunk down lower, circling a wide, beautifully carved pillar. Its tail curled possessively around the stone, and Bella felt a surge of disgust at the display. 

“ _These halls are_ mine _, little bird,_ ” it growled, anger filtering into its voice for the first time. “ _I know every nook and cranny of this kingdom. Every secret, shadowed place. They all taste of me. I_ am _Erebor._ ”

“Oh, are you?” She felt bold, listening to the pride and ego in its voice. “Then how did I get in, oh Smaug the lazy and unaware? If you know this place so well—”

“ _Foolish bird_ ,” its voice slammed into her like a strong wind. She pressed herself back against the wall, swallowing a yelp as she nearly lost her balance. “ _How dare you speak to me like this? I have lived long enough to know the true face of evil. I was here when the world was unmade. You think you can defeat me? Only the black shadow of the south is more powerful than I, Smaug the Terrible, the Ruin of Rhovanion._ ”

She frowned. It certainly did think highly of itself. That bit about the shadow…

Its nostrils flared as it leapt into the air, sliding onto a higher walkway and making coins rain down on top of her. She winced as they smacked into her head and feet, but kept very still. 

A moment of silence as it scented the air. And then a slow, growing laugh. “ _Oh ho, little bird_ ,” it snickered, “ _who sent you here to die? Which son of Durin threw you into the cave to test for dragonfire, to whet my appetite? The dwarves have grown cowardly indeed, if they send such weak little girls to threaten me._ ”

She unclenched her jaw, trying in vain to gather again the remnants of her courage. “No one sent me.”

“ _It must have been Oakenshield,_ ” it said, unheeding. Fear clawed at her chest. Could it smell him on her? “ _Whispers come even to me, you know, safe in my great halls. I heard of the old king’s death, and of his son’s. Only that last, little warrior is left, though he fled readily enough when I broke his doors and ravaged his birthright._ ”

It was trying to frighten her. She knew that. She _knew_ that. And yet it didn’t stop her hands from trembling as she stepped lightly onto the gold. It couldn’t see her, or it would have killed her already. If she walked carefully enough, she might be able to move into another hall. She might find what—

“ _What does he mean by sending you here, though?_ ” The dragon eased off the walkway, sliding like a snake through another mound of gold. Goblets and gems tumbled down in its passing, a rainbow of treasure taunting her, goading her. She watched carefully, trying to see something which might warrant Thorin’s obsession, something so lovely a whole line of dwarves would die for it. She hadn’t even asked what the Arkenstone looked like. She’d been so determined to get down here…

“ _Did he grow tired of you?_ ” 

She tensed, snapping her gaze up to watch its wings unfurl lazily. Its head was sweeping from left to right and its tongue was flicking out from its lips. 

“ _Oh yes, I remember that smell. The smell of_ love _._ ” It gave off a cruel chuckle. “ _The emotions of mortals smell so foul. I have never understood it. It hung in the air, along with fear and pain, when I first took this place. In their last moments, it turned rank. How fleeting, how spare. But I see now why you might risk yourself for him. Did he beg you to help him? Did you offer yourself?_ ”

Bile worked its way up her throat, and it was all she could do to keep moving, to keep looking. 

“ _He’ll be searching for the Arkenstone. Oh, how his grandfather cried when it abandoned him. His desperation lingered in the halls for weeks after he fled. The King Under the Mountain will want it, he pines for it, and how marvelous it would be to watch it drive him mad. I have lived with it all these long years. I know now its secret, its true nature, its allure. Tell me, little bird, what will you do once he’s replaced you with a cold stone? Will you cry, when he carves out his own heart for one of shining moonstone?_ ”

_It’s not true,_ she told herself, trying to block out its voice.

“ _If he cared for you, why would he send you to me? You are nothing to him. He has used you, girl._ ” It was just toying with her. There was no truth to its words, even if they pounded in her chest and seemed to rake at the frayed edges of her mind. “ _You’re going to die, little bird. Your death clings to you. I can taste it in the shadow on your back, the darkness in your heart._ ” 

She stumbled, catching the edge of her dress on a gilded dagger sticking up from the rest of the treasure. Her teeth bit into her cheek as she swallowed a cry and pressed herself up against a pillar. 

It couldn’t know about her injury, about the Morgul scar pounding above her heart.

“ _Oh yes,_ ” it chuckled, the sound making her gut churn, “ _you are a glorious collection of smells. What did you bring with you, little bird? What hides you and cloaks you in darkness? What talisman have you brought me as tribute? There is evil in your heart. I can taste it on the air._ ”

She wanted to clap her hands to her ears. She wanted to scream and drown out its voice. It curled around her mind like its tail curled around the pillars, slipping, sliding under her skin. She hated this place of echoing malice. This hoard of greed and this vile, wicked dragon. _Why_ had she come here?

Her sweaty grip faltered over her sword and it clanged across the mounds of gold. She grabbed for it, managing to catch it before it slid too far. But it had already broken her cover.

With a sickening dread, she turned to see the dragon staring directly at her hand. “ _There you are._ ”

It leapt forward, wings half-extended to glide over the gold sea. The air seemed to burn with its coming. She threw herself to the side, tumbling down the hill of treasure just as it slammed into the pillar. The mountain itself seemed to shake as dust burst from the high ceiling above. A sick, echoing roar pulsed over her, and as she scrambled to her feet, trying to gain purchase against the tilting ground of gold, she sensed its excitement. 

“ _What did you bring me, little bird? What tastes of fire and ash and the world’s ending? It sings to me, calls to me. What precious gift have you wasted on tricks and thievery? I will_ take _it._ ”

Its words made no sense, screaming in one ear and out the other. She only knew that she had to run. There was no outsmarting this beast. There was no talking her way out of being eaten, or burned alive, like all the dwarves who’d been trapped in this place all those years ago. She would die. And even if she ran, it would follow. It would kill the others—her friends, her family. 

She had doomed them all. 

The ground shifted and she pitched forward into another mound of shifting treasure. She pushed herself up again, breath coming in half-sobs from her trembling lips, and as if the mountain itself heard her thoughts, she ran her fingers over smooth, shining stone. 

Her heart lurched, pulled, her attention snagging. She looked down. Moonlight sat between her hands. Or, not moonlight— _starlight_. The light of a rainbow. Shining, pearlescent, shifting with every color imaginable. It was beautiful, and impossible, and she knew at once what it was.

A smooth stone, a bit larger than her hand, lay in the gold at her feet. 

Her mind slowed even in her terror—it was like the moment she’d seen her ring in the goblin caves. Even amidst all this finery, _this_ was a treasure that should not have been sitting forgotten, alone, for anyone to just—

“ _Where are you, thief?_ ” 

The dragon’s voice shattered her momentary calm. It was the Arkenstone. It had to be. The jewel was too fine, too rare. Wars might be fought over this jewel, lives might be lost to possess it. 

As the thought passed through her mind, she felt something like revulsion twist her gut. The reverence vanished as quickly as it had come, and she fought the urge to chuck the jewel back into the mountain of gold, to lose it forever. So much effort, so much death, even for something so beautiful… 

But she’d found it, and damn her if she didn’t want to simply steal it from the dragon. She shoved the jewel into the inner pocket of her coat, buttoned it tight to keep it safe. For the first time since seeing the beast rise from its sea of gold, she felt hope—flickering, faint, but fierce. 

“Better a thief than a _worm_ ,” she cried, her voice shaking, as she leapt down and caused more gold to scatter. She picked up a few larger goblets and chucked them at random, making the shifting mounds of treasure break in random places. She hoped it would be enough to distract the beast. If she could just get to the hallway, it wouldn’t be able to follow her up into the mountainside. The passage was too small.

It howled in anger and leapt forward, crossing her path as she ducked, but overshooting her by a few yards. She followed its arc, and her eyes seemed to hone in on a place just below its left wing. Between the showers of gold coins and jewels, the blood-red scales, was a patch of blank, leathery skin, nigh impossible to miss unless one was directly beneath its belly. 

“ _You will burn, little bird_ ,” it roared, whipping its tail and gnashing its wicked teeth as it hit the ground with a great metallic shudder. “ _Where is your king to save you now?_ ”

“I don’t _need_ saving,” she called out, spurred on by a surge of courage. She was nearly at the ledge now. If she could pull herself up, get into the dark, thin hallway—

Its low, malevolent laugh made her shudder. “ _Shall we test that theory?_ ”

Silence fell over the hall as she scramble over treasure. Between her heavy breathing and the pounding of her heart, she heard something like a spark catch. 

Light blazed around her, reflecting off the ocean of gold. It illuminated the full scope of the dwarven halls, towering over her head, beautiful, unyielding, harsh— _just like Thorin_ , she had only enough time to think, before fire surged toward her. 

 

~  ✧ ~

 

Thorin had given Bella half an hour before he followed her down into the mountain. He thought, all things considered, that he should be commended for waiting at all. Watching her gentle figure disappear into the black depths of his home, he had almost charged after her right then. 

He had let her walk into the maw of the dragon alone. He had watched, and done nothing. For anyone else, _anyone_ , he would have insisted on waiting, on preparing, on being cautious, but with her… He could not think straight with her fierce black eyes burning into the heart of him. He was panic or pleasure, anger or bliss. She reduced him to his basest emotions and Mahal damn him if he didn’t love her for it. 

He had let her go like she wanted. But he did not have to wait. 

Kíli, Ori, and Bofur waited at the door of the secret entrance, just in case it threatened to close and lock them inside with a mad dragon. The rest of his Company followed after him, close on his heel, all of them silent and waiting. For a scream. For a roar. For Thorin’s world to come crashing down around him just as soon as it had been rebuilt. 

When the dragon fire came, he did not freeze in terror. He did not forget himself and become a boy again. 

He was a king, in the realm of his forefathers. He would not back down now. If this was the end, he would meet it head on, and welcome his absolution with clear, steady eyes. 

The main hall opened before him like an old friend, draped in an unfamiliar guise, but welcome, remembered. He spared only a thought for the golden mountains at his feet, the glittering wealth of his people laid out before him like a feast, and searched for Bella. 

The dragon—and here his will was tested against blood-red scales and a shrieking call which shook the foundations of his soul—lunged amongst the gold, searching, shrieking. Its voice radiated out from its bulk like a disease, and he heard the foul thing in his own mind. “ _Come thief, show yourself. I hear your fragile heart beating. So fast, for one so, so small._ ”

Still beating. Her heart was still beating. 

Thorin raised himself up to his full height, Orcrist clutched in his hand, with his oaken shield braced on the other, and bellowed, “Do you converse with the air, Smaug? Has time so dulled your mind?”

The dragon froze. Through the shifting, burning flames, he thought he saw glee flash in the beast’s eyes. “ _The prince has come home at last. Do you come for your little bird. She is mine._ ”

“Face me, wyrm,” Thorin growled. “You will answer for your crimes.”

It slithered around, a smile twisting its rank visage. The same visage he had long imagined in his mind, twisted with the terror of a century. “ _It has been so long since I tasted dwarf-flesh. I remember it well._ ”

Anger, defiant and overwhelming, surged up into his heart, and he shouted an unworded challenge. The dragon’s eyes widened in outrage, and it leapt into the air—directly toward him. 

He kept his eyes on the dragon, waiting, waiting, until—“NOW,” he shouted when the creature was nearly on top of him. His Company burst forth from the hall at his back, all bearing spears, dwarven forged and keen even after centuries of disuse, they had taken from the armories they’d passed. In one mighty, coordinated assault, nine spears flew through the air. The dragon was quick enough to rear back, but in its blind fury, it could not escape them all. 

Three glanced harmlessly off its scaled front, chipping coins and gems in their wake. Two ripped through the thick leather of its right wing while another tore a chunk of scale and skin from its ridged brow. Two found their mark in the socket of its back left knee. The last pierced straight through its outstretched palm, jerking its front leg back so forcefully it caused a mighty crack as something dislocated. 

The beast careened to the ground at Thorin’s feet, roaring and belching great plumes of smoke and fire. He did not give it time to recover before he was streaking forward, screaming with all the might and strength he possessed, and buried Orcrist into its neck. 

One great eye flashed up at him as black, sizzling blood spurted up from the wound, burning through his clothes and leather armor where it touched him. Thorin paid it no heed. The monster that had dogged his dreams since he was a boy, the beast which had stolen his home and made him a beggar, a vagrant, lay twitching and writhing before him. He was closer now to vengeance than he had ever been in his whole life. More than Azog, more than the Great Goblin, he wanted to cut this wyrm apart limb by limb. 

“ _Mukhuh murbel gayuda khama uslukh amrâd,_ ” he whispered, an invocation to his ancestors, to the dead still clinging to these halls—waiting, just as he had waited—and raised his sword once more.

But fate, it seemed, would not be so kind. 

The dragon reared up in whip of unnatural speed, knocking him back. One claw raked across his front, snapping his armor and gouging out a small, shallow cut on his stomach, just deep enough to draw blood. The pain cut through his certainty, and he faltered, hand pressed to his gut as the beast squirmed and writhed upright. Dimly, he saw his Company surge forward, dark figures dancing across his vision, shadows through the flames. 

“ _Thorin_ ,” Bella cried, somewhere over the roiling mass of blood-red limbs. 

Bella. 

He could not see her through the chaos. Did she still wear her ring? 

Fíli cried out in alarm as the dragon swiped him aside and sent him tumbling into Glóin and Bifur, causing all three of them to disappear in a flurry of gold coins. 

“ _NO_ ,” the dragon shrieked, piercing his mind with spectral talons. Dwalin lurched back, his axe trailing more of the creature’s black blood. It twitched and spasmed, its ichor dripping and smoking onto the mountain of treasure. “ _I will not die. I cannot die. I AM DEATH._ ”

With a great, shuddering heave, a last torrent of flame burst from its smoking lips. Thorin dodged, though he smelled burning hair and knew he had only narrowly escaped the blast. The ground shifted beneath him, waves of treasure sliding and falling, endlessly falling. 

He turned in time to see the beast heave itself up, crawling toward the entrance to Erebor, still broken and smashed from that long ago day it had burst into his life. 

_No._ It would not escape. He would not let it.

But the slash on his gut pulsed, and his feet could not find purchase amongst the gold and jewels. The sizzling black blood had gotten onto his stomach, somehow, and it seemed to be seeping into him, burning. He roared as he forced himself to move, sprinting after the beast as it burst through the crumbled gates it had sundered one hundred and seventy years ago.

It roared into the night, peering over its shoulders one last time to found him amidst the fire and smoke. Its voice seemed to come only to him, deadening the sounds of the fire, of his companions, of his own heart—a cruel, low whisper over the crackle of dragonfire. “ _I will return, Thorin, son of Thráin, son of Thrór. I will destroy everything you hold dear. But first,_ ” it arched its back, shaking great streams of black blood onto the frost-covered stones of Erebor’s once proud entrance, “ _let us see if your dark little bird truly has wings._ ”

Thorin continued to run, to race, even as he saw it rise and leap, jerkingly, into the air. Its shredded, broken wings unfurled, blotting out the stars and moon in the clear night sky above. It roared in pain, and for one moment, he thought it might not be able to get into the air. But in the space of a single breath, it launched away. He ran even as it flew farther and grew smaller, heading south, out of reach.

No.

“ _NO!_ ”

The cry, high and ragged, sounded from behind him as he came to a halt on the ramparts, heaving for breath. He turned just in time to see Bella streak toward him, her eyes wide on the sky, mouth open in horror. He caught her as she lurched past, but she pushed at him. 

The dragon was gone. There would be no following now. He had come so close to justice. So close… “Bella,” he swallowed the tremor in his voice, “I know—”

“Lake-town,” she said frantically, shoving him aside, trying to free herself. “It’s headed for Lake-town.”

He tensed, and his grip slackened. She staggered forward a few steps, but seemed to realize her folly and froze, hand pressed to her chest and mouth, as if holding in a scream. 

Dread curled in the pit of his stomach. 

“Those people, all those people,” she whispered, head shaking back and forth in denial. “We have to warn them.”

“How?” Fíli staggered to a halt near her, gulping for air. “There’s nothing we can do. That monster will get there before we could even reach Dale.”

Behind him, Glóin supported Bofur, who was limping. Balin and Dwalin joined them. Óin made a line straight for Thorin. Smoke had singed his beard, but he looked whole, his eyes clear and determined. 

Thorin allowed the attention as he bent to see to his wound, letting the old dwarf sit him down. His eyes found Bella. She looked fine, shaken and covered in soot, but fine. Unhurt. Her dress was scorched, but it was still intact. Her sword was gone, lost somewhere amidst the treasure, no doubt. A bit of gold shined in her hair, as if coins had lodged in her curls. 

Unbidden, the memory of his vision outside the goblin caves came to him again, of Bella wearing a circlet of simple gold, staring over a vast distance beside him with a sad smile. 

He blinked, and it faded, and this time there was no hope to comfort him as he saw her panic, raw and searing. She seemed to scream it from her face, mouth open in a wordless, silent cry. 

“Those people,” she whispered, and the sound cut through him. 

He would have risen to his feet, tried to comfort her, if not for Óin pressing firmly down on his shoulders with a warning in his eyes.

A scuffle sounded over the dying flames, and Kíli bounded toward them. “Fíli? Is anyone hurt?”

Fíli deflated somewhat, watching Bella with a grimace. “We’re all fine, I think.” His eyes met Thorin’s, and they seemed to harden. In confirmation, in relief—he couldn’t tell. “All alive.”

All alive. He should never have hoped for more. They had driven the dragon out. Erebor was theirs once more. 

It was done.

He should have felt proud, triumphant, but his elation was marred by the look of horror on his _âzyungel_ ’s face.

“They’re going to die.” Bella’s voice echoed in the silence, small and faint. “It will burn the city to the water.”

Kíli stiffened, and looked south—just as a jet of distant flame split the night sky. 

Bella made a choked noise, as if she’d been hit in the gut. Every member of the Company present turned to see the fire spread, reflected on the faraway, glassy surface of the Long Lake. The roar of the dragon echoed across the vast distance, disturbingly muted after it had raged so deafening only minutes before. 

“Kíli,” Fíli broke the silence, “what—”

Kíli had surged forward, as if he were about to jump off the rampart onto the ruined stones below. 

“ _Kíli_ ,” Fíli warned as he hauled his brother back.

“We can’t just sit here and watch them burn,” he said, almost as frantic as Bella. His wide eyes never left Lake-town, more fire blazing up and catching, spreading like a blanket over the expanse of the city. Thorin could see the buildings in his mind’s eye—all of them wood, all of them kindling. 

_The fools._

“There is nothing we can do,” he said, straightening as Óin finished cleaning his wound and pressed a clean piece of cloth to it. He rose to his feet, wincing. “Fíli is right. Even if we ran, we could not get there before morning.”

“There’ll be nothing _left_ by morning,” Kíli shouted, desperation flashing over his face. “They’ll all _die._ ”

“We can’t help them, lad,” Balin said darkly, guilt twisting his old features. 

Faster than he could have thought possible, he saw Bella turn and climb up the stone ramparts. Fíli, the one standing closest to her, tried to reach for her, but he was already restraining his brother. 

“Bella,” Thorin shouted, heart lurching into his throat. What did she think to do, fly there herself? “Bella!”

She ignored him. She didn’t even look down. When she could climb no higher, she raised her hands to her mouth, and from her lips came a sound that stopped Thorin in his tracks. 

It was birdsong. Or something like it. It had the semblance of speech, but the sound trilled and jumped and seemed to fly around his head. He had never heard its like, not even in the old raven messengers of his grandfather’s time. 

“Mahal’s mercy,” Balin murmured. Óin had straightened as well, watching Bella with wide, strangely fearful eyes. 

For a moment, they all stood frozen, watching this hobbit speak to the skies in a language none of them had heard before. In that silence, they heard faint screams of terror and pain as an entire city burned alive. 

A streak dipped out of the darkness, alighting on Bella’s outstretched, shaking hand. A bird. _Mahal preserve me, she called it from the air._ It gave a few calls of its own, and Bella answered. Thorin watched the exchange with unease. This was magic, like the magic of wizards or elves. Like the magic in Bella’s ring—unknown and imprecise. Magic he could not understand, or control.

The bird took off again after a brief exchange. Bella watched it go with a clenched jaw, her face streaked in ash and her eyes blacker than the sky above. Slowly, she made her way back down, stumbling on the last step. Dwalin moved forward before Thorin could, catching and holding her up. 

“There’s a gap in its scales,” she said, her voice empty and rough as she straightened, “just under its wing. I thought—if Bard knew…”

“The human?” Thorin asked, an irrational surge of anger coloring his voice. How could that child accomplish what he and the finest dwarven warriors he’d ever known had failed at?

She looked at him, face going hard. “He has birdspeech too, or whatever you want to call it.”

“When did he tell you this?” His mind spiraled through the weeks they’d spent in Lake-town. The weeks of bliss and hope for the future, of relief at finally voicing what he’d known for so many months—when had she found the time to talk to this human alone?

“Does it matter?” she snapped, life coming back into her voice. “It might help him kill that monster.”

“With what? Our spears could barely pierce its hide.”

Her mouth twisted, and a look of utter loathing flashed in her eyes before she turned and stalked away. 

Guilt broke through his anger, and he watched her go with a hollow frustration. He made to follow, knowing he had been an ass. Of course it didn’t matter. What mattered is that she was safe and unharmed. That all of them were.

“Leave her be,” Dwalin said, catching his arm. 

Thorin met his gaze, and sagged. This was not how it should have been. They should be celebrating, not mourning for a city that was not theirs, snapping at each other. He should be clapping hands with his comrades, celebrating the reclamation of their home. Their _home_. At last.

Bella stopped at the lip of the rampant, clutching her arms to herself against night chill. Kíli shoved his brother off and joined her, both of them staring at the burning city in silence. 

“What have we done?” Balin muttered, following their gaze with the beginnings of tears in his eyes. 

“What have we _done_?” Thorin asked, unable to keep his frustration from surfacing. “We have done the impossible. We drove the beast off. Erebor is ours.”

Balin swallowed, eyes going tight. “Aye. That we did. But at what cost?”

His hands clenched into fists. “ _Damn_ the cost.”

The old dwarf turned to him with a start, eyes going wide. He felt the others look at him as well, all except Kíli, who was still watching the flames. 

Thorin looked at them all, seeing surprise, and something like fear, in their eyes. “We have come _home_ at last,” he said steadily. Perhaps the truth had not sunk in yet, with the dragon’s roar still ringing in their minds. “Brother,” he said to Dwalin, gripping his shoulder, almost begging him to see, to understand, to feel something beyond this muted horror, “we are _home_.”

Dwalin’s eyes softened, and he nodded. “Never thought I’d live to see the day.”

“Nor I,” Thorin said with a relieved laugh. 

Glóin joined him, shaking his head with the start of a smile. “I’ll be damned.”

Nori nudged Bifur with a tired grin, and Bombur slumped to the ground with a long sigh. Dori was crying, but they were tears of happiness as he turned to stare at the cavernous halls. Fíli smoothed his hair back, closing his eyes. 

Balin said nothing, staring unfocused at the ground. 

Thorin frowned, but his attention was drawn toward Bella. She had turned to look at him, lips parted and eyes wide. For a moment, he thought she was afraid, until he recognized disbelief in the line furrowing her brow. 

“What would you have me do?” he asked, his voice coming out in a harsh whisper. He had been waiting his whole life to stand once more on these stones, and she would judge him for rejoicing in that? 

Her mouth closed, and her expression slid into a hard, distant mask. “You? Nothing.” She turned again, and he felt the dismissal like a slap across his face. 

She was tired, and grieving for the humans. It would do him no good to stand here and puzzle out her emotions. Not right now. Later, when they were alone, and he could talk to her without the reflection of flames coloring the night and making her ash-streaked face look shadowed and hollow. There were more important things to be done. 

They had won back their kingdom, yes, but they would not hold it for long. Not without the Arkenstone. 

Preparing himself for her reaction, he stepped forward. “Did you find the Arkenstone?”

Her face tightened. “Before or after the dragon tried to rip me apart?”

Dread and frustration pooled in his stomach. “Were you hurt?”

“Do you care?”

He swallowed the urge to pull her to him, to make her face him. Grabbing her now would do neither of them any good, even if he wanted to touch her, to convince himself she was unhurt and whole. “You know I do.”

Her chin trembled, and she turned her head just enough so he could see her flickering fear. “The dragon got you.”

“It did, but I will recover.”

She nodded, blinking a few times. “I didn’t find the stone. I—I didn’t realize… The thing took me by surprise.”

Her voice wavered, and he was struck then by the white-knuckled grip on her arms, the haunted look in her eyes beyond her anger and horror. “Whatever it said,” he murmured, stepping closer and pitching his voice so Kíli, standing a few feet away, would not hear, “you should not heed it. Dragons are masters of lies and trickery.”

“I know.”

He chanced to press his hand to her back, and though she stiffened at first, she turned into his embrace. His eyes closed in relief as he held her and felt her shaking against him. Her hands balled into fists against his chest, and she muttered, “This is all my fault. I never should have come down here alone and antagonized it. They’re all going to die because of me.”

He tensed, pulling back just enough to tilt her chin up to him. “That creature’s wrath is not of your making, Bright Eyes.”

She seemed close to arguing that point, when a loud, piercing cry broke over the sounds of Lake-town’s destruction. 

Thorin looked just in time to see the outline of the dragon jerk over the haze of smoke and fire. A long, drawn out silence followed, and then a bellowing crash rippled out from the lake, distorting the reflection of the sky above. 

Stillness. When the beast did not rise from the wreckage of its burning grave again, they relaxed. 

“Thank Mahal,” Balin murmured, slumping down to sit on a large, broken piece of the guard tower. 

“It’s done,” Óin said roughly, his solemnity shadowed by Dwalin’s growl of triumph and Glóin’s carrying laugh. 

Thorin pulled Bella close, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. She smelled of fire and dust, and the subtle, earthy sweetness he had grown to cherish. “Your human is more capable than I thought.” He worked through the strange annoyance and disappointment in his chest. Smaug was dead. It didn’t matter if it wasn’t by his own hand. Bard had struck him as a man who knew how to defend himself. He had watched them warily enough during their stay. If any of those grimy humans could have killed the beast, it would be him.

Bella remained silent, a sign of harsher things to come, he knew, but he was saved the trouble of worrying by the arrival of Ori and Bofur, and the restless stirring of his Company. Now, after all their hardship, would come the next phase of reclaiming Erebor. Arguably, it would be more difficult that the rest. 

“The Arkenstone is paramount,” he said as they all turned to him for orders. “Without it, we might just as easily lose this place to the first scavengers who come sniffing after the dragon’s abandoned hoard. We need to secure this entrance, and search.”

“Surely not tonight,” Balin said with a slight frown. “It’s past midnight, Thorin. The Arkenstone can wait for morning.”

He opened his mouth to argue, the immediate denial on his lips. His old friend knew better than anyone what that stone meant, how important it was—how dare he say otherwise? But he caught Bella’s sharp, searching gaze, and hesitated. “Fine. We’ll begin tomorrow morning. We’ve earned our rest.”

The Company set about clearing a space for sleeping, and Thorin fought the urge to simply go look himself. Now that he was here, he felt its significance pulling at him. He must find the Arkenstone, and soon, or else all of this might be lost. It would mean nothing without the Arkenstone—his kingdom, his people, his family. How could he make an offer of marriage without settling that debt to his people first? He had not spoken false. His life was bound to the stone and the mountain first. He could not give of himself without first finding it, and making sure it was safe. 

A soft hand traced the line of his chin. He pulled his gaze from the mountains of gold and the dim flames still over them. Bella stared up at him, brow furrowed. “You’ve done the impossible, Thorin. Is that not enough?”

How could he explain to her what the Arkenstone meant, what all the wealth of his people meant? She was borne from growing, ephemeral things, greenery and sunlight. His heart was one cut from stone. It was twin to the Heart of the Mountain. It called to him, as the sun called to her. 

“It is,” he murmured, “and it is not.” 

Now that he was here, he knew. He might as well continue to wander the world a pauper if the stone was not found. 

She studied his face, a faraway, knowing sadness entering her eyes. He waited for her reproach, but it never came. Instead, she rose up to kiss him, lightly, barely a brush of her lips against his, and went to help Fíli clear out rubble. 

Thorin watched her, fighting against a strange conflict—as if a choice sat before him, two paths in a darkened cavern. One would lead to light and warmth and love, while the other held his people’s salvation.

_Foolishness._ There was no choice. He could have both. He _would_ have both. He was inventing fear where there should be celebration. After all this time, he could not accept that he had arrived, at last, with the love of his life and all his Company alive and well. It would come to him, eventually, the knowledge that he had won back a home for his people. And when the cleaning was done, and the Arkenstone rested in the throne above his head, he would begin the happy torment of marrying his _âzyungel_. He had a future, for the first time in his life, which did not include death and war. 

It would take him time to adjust, that was all. 

As he helped his Company settled in for the night, his eyes continued to stray toward the golden hoard in the halls beyond. His mind bent to it, aligning with the knowledge that it was here. It was his. After so long scrambling for money from humans and clawing for respect from the other kingdoms, he had power, and the knowledge of how best to spend it. He was not a vagrant anymore. Soon, very soon, he would be a king in more than just spirit, and he could finally return his people to their rightful place of comfort and peace.

Yes, the future was bright indeed. Bright in the glow of his beloved’s eyes, and the gold of his forefathers. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Khuzdul  
>  _Mukhuh murbel gayuda khama uslukh amrâd_ \- May my people’s spirit rejoice in the dragon’s death.


	36. Banish You with Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Soothing" by Laura Marling](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROiKbckeGIo&index=36&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-)

The scouring of Erebor was hard, unforgiving work. Smaug’s influence ran deep, in the gauges across the once-fine marble floors, the piles of long-bare bones, the nests of filth amongst dust-covered gold and jewels. It was a nasty place, at once gaudy and grotesque. Bella fought a continual scowl as she moved amongst the Company, trying to emulate their giddiness and triumph, their satisfaction in this gilded tomb. 

The Lonely Mountain stank with death and decay, and a small voice in her mind whispered that it would remain so forever, no matter how much she cleaned and scrubbed and tried to see it differently. 

They spent the better part of two days trying to orient themselves in the labyrinthine mess. The older dwarves remembered Erebor well, though Thorin seemed to have an innate sense for passageways and hidden rooms, where they might find storage rooms or kitchens, banquet halls and private quarters. The mountain welcomed him with enthusiasm, showing him paths she hid from the others. 

Toward Bella, the mountain seemed to hold a sharp disdain. She had gotten lost more than once, needing to call for help until one of the others came with unbearable amusement to guide her back. Rats had nearly eaten through her bedroll on their first night. She hadn’t been sleeping in it, of course—she’d been with Thorin, as she had been every night since arriving—but it still seemed an ill omen, as none of the others’ things had been touched. She was cold, always, the drafts cutting through her no matter how many dwarven coats were piled on top of her. No matter how closely she clung to her king under the mountain.

And if her situation was a tangle of doubt and frustration, so too was her mind. Doubt, because she still hadn’t told Thorin of the Arkenstone, and frustration at being stuck inside this place while the people of Lake-town recovered on their own. 

She didn’t know why she lied, that first night. She was angry, and horrified, and hated herself for stirring the dragon into a rage. How many people had lost their lives and their homes because of her ego? How many deaths now hung on her conscience? Thorin’s dismissal of the _cost_ disturbed her, and though she tried to explain it away—he was hurt, he’d just regained his home after so many years, he was bound to have strange priorities, and he’d never shown a fondness for humans at large—she couldn’t get his immediate outrage out of her mind. As if she were silly to even think of warning them, to want to help them. 

She had spent that first bleak morning watching the smoke rise from the town which had sheltered them and felt its image seared into her soul. Though she fought against the urge, her eyes traced the surface of the lake, looking for Smaug, his voice whispering horrible fears into the back of her mind. Boats had gone back and forth across the water, presumably collecting the injured and what valuables they could from their ruined homes. More than a few must have been funeral barges. Rafts piled with dead for the burying. Did humans bury their dead like hobbits? She’d never had the chance to ask. The thrush had not returned to her. Perhaps she had doomed the little bird as well. 

As the days dragged on, and Thorin’s priorities grew increasingly obvious, her reasons grew more vague. He was irritable, more so than usual, and he’d taken to driving them all at a relentless pace. He’d snapped at his nephews, at Dwalin and her, more than once. He’d started ignoring Balin entirely when he suggested that perhaps what they were searching for was lost, well and truly. 

It never seemed like the right time to give him the Arkenstone, not in the brief moments they stole for themselves. She worried for the deep furrow in his brow, the distant, cold twist in his mouth. She didn’t want to lose what little time she was able to wrest from his obsession with finding the damn stone. She didn’t want to spoil it. 

Something deep inside her screamed that this went beyond obsession, or concern. 

Dragon-sickness. 

The elvenking’s taunting seemed to follow her along with Smaug’s, like a second beat of her heart, no matter how much she told herself that Thorin was different. He was stronger. 

Days passed of sifting through mountains of golden coins, every once in a while coming across bones or other, less pleasant leavings. To her guilt, she was relieved that Fíli had stopped hovering over her, though she missed his constant presence. He had taken to keeping a close eye on Kíli, who’d been quiet and distracted ever since they’d watched Lake-town burn. 

Bella knew, of course, that his thoughts were far off, centered on a red-headed elf. An elf who had stayed in Lake-town for him, for the chance that their ill-fated romance might come to something one day when their homes were secure and they had time to themselves.

An elf who might be dead. 

She’d tried not to meet Kíli’s gaze, though he seemed to want some sign from her that she too thought this was insane. They needed to see how Lake-town fared. They should offer aid, or at least shelter. This digging for treasure was pointless, not in the least because the object of their search hung in the pocket of her mother’s coat, buttoned, safe, hidden from Thorin. 

But she couldn’t acknowledge the desperation in Kíli’s eyes. Part of her wanted to bury herself away in this rank mountain, never to learn just how much her folly had cost. She was too much of a coward.

On the fifth day of work, of climbing over an endless sea of stinking gold, she finally had to say something, or she might burst. Taking care to work near Balin, she sorted coins and jewels, not even marveling at the wealth passing through her cold, stiff hands anymore—after the first few hours, it had all started to blur together into an obscene joke. Here she was counting coins while the people of Lake-town dragged their dead from ash-filled waters. 

Close to midday, she picked her way toward the old dwarf, taking care not to slip on the sloping hill of rubies he’d been perusing all morning. He looked up with a tight smile, his eyes somewhere else, far away, as they had been ever since the dragon had died. “Hello, lass. Find anything worth mentioning?”

“A few diamond-studded throwing stars, a necklace with some kind of blue gems.” She shrugged. “Honestly, my eyes are starting to cross with all this glittering. How you lot keep it straight is beyond me.”

Balin chuckled. “A burglar with no love of treasure. What will history recall of our bringing you on, I wonder.” He must have seen the question forming in her eyes, for he straightened, and the smile slid quickly from his face. “Something on your mind?”

She swallowed, her determination fleeing in the open concern on his face. Even in his scrutiny and warning, Balin was kind, considerate. There was a steadiness to him, a frank honesty which had no airs or ego. He would not lie to her, not even to protect her, or to protect the ones he loved.

This, more than anything, was why it had taken her five days to work up the courage to talk to him. 

As the silence dragged on, awareness clicked in his eyes, and he let out a deep, knowing sigh. “Oh, lass.”

“Has it—” She cleared her throat. “Has he…succumbed?”

His mouth twisted, and his hesitation was enough to tell her that he had. 

“This is what you warned me about,” she murmured. A deep, yawning hole opened up in the base of her stomach, and if she hadn’t been standing beneath hundreds of feet of rock and stone already, she might have believed she’d been swallowed up by the ground itself. “Dragon-sickness.”

“He told you, then. Good.”

“Did you think he wouldn’t?”

He shook his head. “It wasn’t my choice. I’m glad he did, though. You deserved that much.” At her frown, he continued, “These things are not spoken of outside kin and kith, not for dwarrows. One dwarf’s private affairs belong to him alone.”

“But they’re not private,” she whispered, taking a step toward him. She felt Dwalin’s eyes on the side of her face, where he had been working a few yards away. “Not when—”

“I know,” Balin muttered. “I know. I didn’t mean—” He took a deep breath, and his expression faltered. Something seemed to break inside him, and he shuddered. Moisture limned his sharp, grey eyes. 

“You knew.”

Deep, aching sadness gripped her as she watched the old dwarf hold back tears. They had never been close. She’d always thought he disliked her, or disapproved, but she had always respected him, and valued his word, even when he gave her veiled warnings and intrusive advice. He reminded her very much of her grandfather, the Old Took, in the hazy, childhood memories she still had of him—clever, kind, and more than willing to let younger and stupider hobbits get into adventures for him while he meddled from the sidelines. He watched, and he waited. He guided. He loved Thorin. That much was obvious. And he hated to see him suffer just as much, if not more, than Bella.

In the moment of silence, she was struck by an immediate longing for Gandalf. The old fool might be more trouble than he was worth most of the time, but oh how she missed him. He would have known what to do with the Arkenstone. He would have known how to cure Thorin from this sickness.

“I hoped it would pass him by,” Balin mumbled, face screwed up in defeat. “I prayed, and I hoped. If anyone might have beaten it, it would have been him. But it’s too strong, Bella,” he added urgently, imploring her. “A curse lies on this gold, its foundation built into the line of Durin over a thousand years ago. He fights against his own history, his own blood. What can one man do in the face of that?”

“Is there nothing we can do?” Her voice came out small and fragile. She heard it as if from far away, an echo of an echo. “Is he gone?” _We barely had a month…_

“No, not really. He’s just…” He wiped tears from his eyes, and a purposeful tone crept back into his voice. “It is a fierce and obsessive love which has hold of him. I’ve only seen it once before, in his grandfather. Thráin was still there, under it all, even in the end, but he could not be swayed from doting on his gold, his treasure. It became more important to him than anything.”

His words dropped like stones into the base of her stomach. More important than anything. This love of gold. “And the Arkenstone is at the center of it?”

“The Arkenstone represents the king’s divine right to rule this kingdom. It is the heart of our people, the Heart of the Mountain. Without it, I fear his claim would be threatened, and all our work would be for naught.”

She looked over his shoulder, making sure that Dwalin was out of earshot. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him, not in the least, but she knew how close he and Thorin were. She would not put this burden on him, not even its implication. 

The stone seemed to grow hot in her pocket, and she fought the urge to fumble for her ring. “So, finding it is important.”

“Aye, it’s important,” Balin muttered, the line in his brow carving new weariness into his already lined face. “And until it’s found, he will only grow more obsessed.”

“But,” she exhaled, heart pounding in her throat, “would it help? Would it make him better if he had it?”

Balin stilled. 

She swallowed. He was too clever. Of course he would know. “If it was found, I mean?”

He met her gaze slowly, almost reluctantly. “That stone is the crowning jewel of Erebor. It is the wealth of a kingdom dating back thousands of years. It is worth more than all the gold you see before you.”

She tried not to react, but she felt her jaw clench and her chest warm with nervous heat. He knew. Damn him he knew. And he would tell Thorin. 

He stepped toward her, and for the first time, she realized that they were nearly the same height. He laid a hand on her arm, squeezed tight. “No, lass,” he murmured, his voice soft and searching, eyes pleading as they held hers, “I don’t think it would. I think we would lose him forever. You’ll not hear me say it aloud to anyone else, but perhaps it is _best_ if it’s never found.”

He left her with one last, lingering look, and went back to his searching. Dwalin was no longer watching them, but seemed to be breaking apart rocks with a determined, single-minded focus.

The Arkenstone hung heavy in her pocket, and she tried to think of some way to get around this. Perhaps if she persuaded Thorin to leave, if she forced upon him some perspective and fresh air… He had known this was coming. He was strong of mind and stronger of heart. He could fight this, if he had help.

But even now, she saw him on the other side of the cavernous hall, throwing himself into the search with furious zeal. The distance between them seemed to triple, and for the first time since Rivendell, she felt small. The single-minded look in his eyes was cold and unfamiliar. He felt a stranger to her, with his manic drive and cruel, dismissive air of anything not centered around the stone, the damn, bloody stone…

_He will replace you_ , Smaug’s voice seemed to whisper in the back of her mind. _You are nothing to him, less than a hunk of cold stone._

She wanted to believe she could pull him back, but after all, they barely knew each other. Their love was newly budded, not even ripe yet. A few weeks of whispered promises and shared nights—what was that against a thousand-year-old curse? Who was she, against the legacy of his people? 

_Nothing_ , Smaug whispered, and she struggled to ignore it.

With a heavy heart, she returned to the charade of searching, and tried to ignore the curling voice of the wyrm in her mind, and the deep, resonant pain thrumming over her heart. 

 

~  ✧ ~

 

As the days wore on, and the Arkenstone remained lost, Thorin grew nervous. 

What better sign could Mahal give him of his displeasure than to hide the Heart of the Mountain? What more could he do, other than search until his fingers bled and his eyes were rimmed in red? What else would his Maker ask of him?

Thorin would fill whatever price, he would do anything, to retrieve the Arkenstone. There was nothing more important to him now than finding the stone, that final piece of a quest which had taken him nearly two centuries to fulfill. The endless gold, the wealth of his grandfather, and his grandfather before him, called to him—but it was a siren’s lure, a false comfort, for none of it meant anything without the Arkenstone to crown it all. It might as well have been sand he crawled over, drops of dragon blood hiding amongst the peaks and valleys instead of rubies, rivers of pale, inconstant light in the cavern walls rather than diamond and silver. It meant nothing without the Arkenstone.

“Another test,” he muttered to himself as he dove into the treasure hall which had once been his grandfather’s sanctum. He had thought it a cold place as a young man, but not now. Now it was one more thing to overcome—a symbol of what was waiting for him, when he finally proved himself ready to hold it. “Another test that I shall master. Do you hear me, Mahal? Lay your worst at my feet, and I shall persevere. I shall earn this crown, or I shall die trying.”

He felt the stares of his Company follow him, but they were like wraiths around him, reflections of another life which was not his unless he could prove himself worthy of it. Their faces blurred together, and at times he felt like the ghosts of the past had come back to mock him. Balin, younger, with black hair and smooth skin, sharp grey eyes watching, always watching, reminding him of the day the dragon had come. Kíli, with the lightness and laughter of Frerin, reproaching him for failing to reclaim their home after so long, for failing him, again. Fíli, the pale reflection of his mother, who had given up everything to see him off. Dís had sacrificed her life for him so that he could play king. This is how he repaid her? By losing their home at the final hour? Even Dwalin seemed removed from him. His once familiar eyes distant, and cold. His brother in all but blood had abandoned him, a king without a throne, a leader without the ability to lead. 

Shadows gathered at the back of his mind. They sometimes took the shape of the sneering elf-lord Thranduil, or the hulking form of Azog with his ghostly blue eyes. Arrows launched themselves from the horizon, landing in his shoulder, and his leg. His enemies were everywhere, and he must have the Arkenstone to fend them off. The Arkenstone would shield him, as nothing else could.

In his darkest moments, he almost thought… Had he misjudged these men he’d brought with him? He had known them his whole life, but the road had been long, and the greed of dwarrows ran deep. The Arkenstone was a prize unlike any of them had ever seen. Had one of them come upon it and taken it for himself? Were they conspiring against him, thinking him feeble—someone they might supplant for power? It had happened before. Dwarrow-kings had been tricked by men they once trusted, killed by their closest allies or brothers. Was this Mahal’s test? To send his own kin against him, to learn finally the strength of his devotion to his people? Was he to rule over a kingdom of betrayers and thieves?

No.

He was letting his fear get the better of him. The Arkenstone would be found. It had to be. Without it, he was just a man—a weak, lost man. 

A man unworthy of Bella. 

She was his only light in all this darkness, as the Arkenstone eluded him and his Company judged him from behind whispers and stares. Her eyes were his only light, guiding him back to himself every night she let him into her warm embrace. 

In those moments, when it was just them, slick and sweaty from love-making, breathless as they held each other in the comforting silence of the mountain, he wondered… Was the Arkenstone truly that important? Hadn’t he already succeeded? She had asked him—was it not enough to have this home, and his Company, and her love?

Was it not enough?

It wasn’t. It would never be. 

But how to tell her that without hurting her, he did not know. 

And so he searched, and he searched, and at the end of days which grew longer and longer, he fell into her, and let himself believe the lie that perhaps it was enough. That perhaps _she_ was enough. 

“Was this your room?” she asked him six, or was it seven, days after Smaug’s death. 

His face was pressed into the soft flesh of her stomach, breathing her in, memorizing the swell of her hips with his hands. He rose up and started to smile, before he notice the dark circles under her eyes, the tightly drawn cast to her mouth. Had she not been sleeping? Worse, had he not noticed?

“It was,” he murmured. “You’ll notice the faded tapestry to your left depicting a great warrior on an armored boar.” He nodded to the far wall. “A gift from my cousin Dáin when I turned twenty.”

She frowned, squirming to the side to look. “Is that supposed to be you?”

“An artistic rendering.”

“You’ve got very luscious hair.”

He snorted and rolled to his side, curling an arm under her waist and wrapping the furs more closely around her. In the light from the hearth, he saw gooseflesh rising over her arms and legs. “Are you implying that my hair is otherwise?”

“Oh, nothing of the sort.” Her lips twitched. “Only that your cousin Dáin thinks you are very beautiful. Your lips would be the envy of any buxom hobbit lass back in the Shire.”

“He meant it as a joke. Gifts so extravagant can’t be refused without causing offense, which he knew, of course. I had no choice but to display it or risk my mother’s wrath for poor manners.”

She grinned. “He sounds delightful. I look forward to meeting him.”

The idea struck him with such immediate foreboding, that his dismay must have shown on his face, but her giggle wiped it clean at once. “Laugh now,” he murmured, twirling his fingers through a few errant curls of burnished yellow—she fit so well the wealth of the mountain, a golden jewel in her own right, “but we shall see how you fare when you meet the rest of my extended family. There will be ceremonies and feasts, and endless talks of preparations for the wedding itself. You will be hard-pressed to find a moment alone once we’re in the thick of it.”

She placed a hand over his lips and arched an eyebrow. “Excuse me. You have not proposed. This is highly improper.”

“Ah yes, and you are a very proper woman. That explains the stream of curses which fell from your lips only an hour ago while you writhed about on my hand.” He watched the color rise over her chest with a slow smile, trailing his hand down around her hip, circling her thigh. 

Her eyes narrowed, but she only seemed to melt under his touch. “I am a Baggins, after all.”

“How could I forget?” he asked, bending to kiss her neck.

“You won’t, will you?”

He frowned, propping himself up on an elbow to better read her expression. 

Her fingers traced the braids on one side of his face, a gentleness settling over her features. “Forget who I am, when I’m—” She cleared her throat. “I have no idea what it means to be a queen, but you won’t suddenly expect me to be quiet and demure, or sit in a room all day waiting for you come back when you’re done running your kingdom?”

“Frankly, I would ask you _not_ to sit in a room all day, if only because I would not like to deal with my steward when I come back to find you’ve destroyed all the furniture in protest. I would also like our quarters not to be swallowed by flowers. And I worry for my health if you were cooped up for hours without anyone to distract you from your insatiable hobbitish appetite.” He cupped her face as she scowled, tucking her hair behind her small, pointed ears. “No, Bright Eyes, I would not ask you to become something you’re not. I have known who you are from the first night in your smial. I fell in love with _you_ , not who I might want you to be.”

“I know it’s going to be…different, my _queening_ ,” she said the word with distaste, as if she were a child refusing her vegetables, “but I’d be very bad at the other kind, anyway.”

“It will be different for all of us. But we have time. Time enough to learn, and adjust.” And they did. Staring into her eyes, he saw his future unfold before him like illumination spreading through a vast, glittering cavern. It would never be enough, were they to live centuries and centuries. He would never have enough of her. 

“Are they coming soon? Your extended family, I mean.”

And just like that, his peace shattered. The Arkenstone rose implacable in the front of his mind. He felt the draw toward the gold in the entrance hall, the piles of treasure still waiting to be searched in the mountain all around him. It pulsed like a misplaced second heartbeat, and he blinked against the strange disorientation he felt as he stared into Bella’s bird-black eyes. The gold in her hair gleamed like a tease, and he took a deep breath. “No. Not until the Arkenstone is found.”

Her face tightened, and she seemed to lay very still. “Is it that much of a risk to call them here without it?”

She had begun to show displeasure at his mentioning it. He knew well that she didn’t understand its necessity or importance. He just wished she could _try_ , rather than dismiss his people’s legacy with such disdain. “It might be,” he muttered. “It’s already taken too long. News will spread of the dragon’s death.” He imagined Thranduil arriving at his gates, demanding the starlight gems now sitting in Thorin’s chest at the base of his bed. His lips thinned. _Come and claim them, snake_. “Carrion crows circle the Lonely Mountain, searching for weakness, for a way to steal what we alone worked so hard to reclaim. I would not risk it. Not yet.”

“Could you not convince them otherwise—”

“Why should I?” he asked, frowning down at her. “This mountain is mine by divine right, as is the stone. My people will see that, but only if it sits atop my head.”

She snorted. “Are you going to wear it as a crown?”

He blinked, all warmth bleeding from him. Was this… _funny_ to her? “If I did?”

“Well, it’s a bit obvious, don’t you think? It’d be like wearing a diamond codpiece. ‘Look at my manhood, see how it shines—’ ”

“This is no laughing matter.” He shoved up from the bed, sliding out of her embrace. Anger pulsed in his chest. Could she not see how this pained him? He tried so hard to account for her feelings, he had given of himself, again and again, sacrificed his own fears and misgivings so she might play hero—and she used him for sport.

For a moment, there was only silence, and then she murmured, “All right. I didn’t mean to poke fun.”

He scowled. “Yes, you did. Don’t claim ignorance.”

The bed shifted beneath him, and she slid up to his side, wrapping the furs around her shoulders as she bent forward to look into his eyes. “Thorin, I’m sorry.”

He met her gaze—careful, intent—and felt his anger disperse. “I know you don’t understand,” he muttered, letting her card her fingers through his hair. “I—shouldn’t have taken offense.”

He shouldn’t have, now that he thought on it. She teased him, always, and he enjoyed it. It sometimes made him want to break things, but he would not have her do any different. Not only because he knew himself well enough to know that he took himself far too seriously. It was why he surrounded himself with strong people to challenge him—Balin, Dwalin, his cousins, even Fíli was growing into a man he admired and respected, a man who would not lie to save his ego. Her sharp tongue was part of her, just like her fire and her courage. He loved it, as he loved the rest of her. He should have known better than to take it to heart. And he should not have gotten so angry.

Her brow furrowed. “I worry about you.”

A smile pulled at his mouth. “You’ll forgive me if I find this shift in our roles rather ironic.”

“I will not.” Her eyes winked with amusement, but her expression was tight. “You haven’t been well, Thorin. You’re taking too much of this onto yourself. It’s not healthy.”

“I know,” he murmured, sighing deeply and leaning into her touch. “It’s—stress, only. It’s eating away at me, love. Once I have the Arkenstone, and we can start making this place a home again, it will pass. Don’t concern yourself too much. All will be right soon, and this will be but an unhappy dream.”

She said nothing, but her gaze did not falter or drop. It held him, piercing through him with its intensity. One day, she might burn straight through his skull if he wasn’t careful. 

“Can we forget the past few minutes?” He twisted, reaching for her, wanting again to bury himself inside her and forget the world. “Can I instead distract you with all the improper thoughts your body stirs in my mind?”

But she didn’t melt into him, as she normally did, with a roguish gleam in her eyes and a sly, loving comment. She tensed, and leaned back from his touch. “And if I don’t want to be distracted?”

He should have known she would not make this easy. Instead, he curled her hair over his fingers, marveling at the burnished sheen. Spun gold. It would match well with a crown of emeralds and topaz—his queen of the growing, green earth. “Don’t you? You spend enough time staring out toward Lake-town that I thought—”

Her hand dropped, snagging on a few tangles of his hair. “I stare at Lake-town because I worry over what they’re going through. Their home was destroyed. People died. I’m having a hard time getting over it as fast as you are.”

This, again? “They will rally.”

“Like you rallied?”

His jaw clenched, but he forced his voice to be smooth as he said, “Yes.”

“Right. I forgot it only took you _three days_ to get over the destruction of your home. Silly me.” She didn’t move, but her eyes burned fiercely enough that he dropped his hand from her hair. “Do you truly not care?”

“Of course I care,” he said darkly, trying hard to keep his anger from rising once more. “But my people must come first.”

“ _Your_ people are not dying.”

“They are.” He rose to his feet, pacing to a low table, covered in his armor and weapons. It had once held his books and papers, manifests of trade and commerce his father had encouraged him to read in his spare time—all preparation for his assuming the throne. All his life, he had been working toward this one, singular goal. He was so close, and yet the distance had never seemed further away. It was insurmountable, without the Arkenstone. “Every day, they die outside the walls of their true home. Every day, they are forced to belittle themselves to these humans you hold so dear, to beg for food and money, to pretend to be something they are not. I will not let them wallow a day longer than they must, not when their security rests just outside my reach.”

“So only _your_ people are more worthy of shelter and security, is that it?”

He turned, finding her seated on the edge of his bed, furs sliding off the gentle slope of her shoulders. The light from his hearth danced against the inky scars over her heart. Learned fear rippled and coiled inside his chest, and he fought for an even tone. “They are your people too.”

Her jaw clenched and her nostrils flared, but she bit back whatever she was going to say. They stared at each other, her gaze growing sharper by the second. 

“Bella,” he murmured, unable to take her hostility anymore, “I cannot risk Erebor.”

“Isn’t that what Thranduil said, when you went to him for aid after the dragon drove you out?”

His body went rigid, the anger he’d been trying so hard to control raging back to life. He rose, pacing to his clothes where they had pooled on the floor in his earlier haste to bed this hobbit who would compare him to that vile, that _villainous_ —

“Open your gates, Thorin,” she said, her voice growing urgent and rough, “or let me go and see—”

“No.”

Silence fell as he pulled on his pants. With his blood pounding in his ears, he almost missed the soft shift of fur over skin as she stood. 

“I’m sorry,” she said, very softly, which should have made him immediately wary, but only seemed to fuel his frustration, “it sounded as if you just denied me the right to go to Lake-town.”

“I did.” He turned to her, trying not to let the sight of her body, bare and illuminated in warm firelight, distract him. “You cannot leave the mountain. It’s too dangerous. Thranduil might have sent emissaries to Lake-town by now, to inquire after the dragon’s death. Those flames would have been seen for miles, and I cannot risk them learning that the Arkenstone has not been found. And there is still the matter of Azog and his vermin, who might at this moment be racing toward us. The only place your safety is ensured is here.” 

_With me_ , he didn’t add, though he wanted to. She was stubborn, and he knew how she liked to balk at his attempts to protect her, but he would not deny himself the truth now. The only place he could be sure she was safe was at his side. One of his hearts was already missing. He would not lose sight of the other. 

Her expression was rigid, the only sign of her building fury the gleam in her black eyes. Let her be mad, then. He would rather her mad than dead somewhere beyond his reach. The scar on her shoulder seemed to pulse, to tease him with its blackness, and he fought a shudder. 

“You’d stop me, wouldn’t you?” she asked slowly, her voice tight, and colder than he had ever heard it. He was used to her anger, and her indifference. This was something else altogether.This made him afraid. “If I wanted to leave, you would keep me here against my will.”

She didn’t pose it as a question. She posed it as a curse.

“See reason, Bella—”

“Ah yes, your old friend, _reason_.”

“Will you stop jesting for one moment?” he snapped, tired of her jokes and her teasing. She must see the necessity of her safety. She _must._ She was too important. Too precious. “Are you so eager to throw away your life?”

“Better that than being trapped in a cage,” she said derisively. 

“Is that what you think this is?” he shouted, face flushed with outrage and panic. “I have only ever wanted to protect you.”

“I don’t _need_ your protection,” she spat. “Not if it comes with iron bars.”

“It would not have to, but you seem ready to fight me on the importance of your own damn life, so,” he spread his hands, sneering, “here we are.”

She threw her furs to the ground and stalked past him for her own clothes where they were tangled with his. Only hours ago, they had been clutching at each other like animals, so eager, so unwilling to wait—now she couldn’t bear to look at him. 

“Bella, wait, _please_ ,” he muttered, smoothing his hair back and reaching for her.

She smacked his hands away so hard it stung. “Don’t touch me.”

“I didn’t mean that.”

She let out a sharp, cruel laugh as she pulled on her skirts. “ _Yes_ , you did.”

“I would never hold you against your will.”

“Of course you would,” she shouted, rounding on him as she struggled into her corset. “You’ve made your opinion of my _obstinance_ very clear from the first moment you met me. I’m surprised you haven’t tried chaining me to your bed. I’ve come across some gilded ones in that dragon-dung pile of a treasure hoard. Maybe find some nice manacles inlaid with sapphires or something equally ridiculous.”

He watched her rage, fear breaking fully through his anger. The only light in his life seemed to be dimming the more he fumbled for her, dancing away from him like the fey lights seen in the deep darkness of the world below, lights meant to tempt miners into wandering off into the dark, never to return. He was losing her, no matter how tightly he held on. No matter how fiercely he loved her, he could not make her understand. He swallowed the lump in his throat, the words nearly choking him. “Do you want to leave me?”

She stilled. Her expression broke, and he saw a deep pain shine through her eyes. It cut him, ripped into his chest and left him feeling as if swords had pierced through his heart. 

“No,” she murmured, though her expression didn’t soften. “I don’t want to leave you.”

He stepped forward slowly, holding her face in his hands. He tried to smother the fear still pounding in his stomach. This pain in her eyes scared him, because he didn’t know how to stop it, how to soothe it. “Then why are we speaking of this?”

“This is _wrong_.” She reached out and gripped his shirt, twisting it, as if she might start shaking him. “Thorin, you have to see that.”

Part of him did. Part of him heard her words and screamed at the rest of him to listen, to heed her. The humans had suffered because of his actions. He saw the fear in his Company’s eyes, and it shook him to his core, but the truth hovered at a distance, veiled behind the larger urgency to secure his home, to find the Arkenstone, to protect this home he had only barely won back. 

In the face of that, nothing else mattered. 

Her hands loosened and dropped, and her expression winked shut. He watched her put distance between them, throw up barriers he could not break, not without force. “I need some air,” she muttered.

Panic gripped him. _Don’t leave. Don’t leave me._ “Bella—”

“I’m going crazy in here, Thorin. Not with you, just…” She finished lacing up her corset, shoving her arms through her dusty dress with an efficient finality. “I need to get some fresh air.” 

His jaw clenched, but he said nothing as she picked up her coat with shaking hands and walked toward the door. He stared into the flames, feeling her warmth leech from him. 

_Hearth or dragon fire?_ a voice whispered into the back of his mind. 

He still didn’t know. 

Thorin shoved the thought away, trying to think of something else, anything else. The Arkenstone. He would find the Arkenstone, and fix this. All would be well in time.

“I won’t let you turn me into a jewel.”

She stood by the door, watching him with hard, firm eyes. 

“What?” he asked, his mind already searching through the mountain, as if he might be able to find the Arkenstone just by willing it to him. 

“You will not drape me in velvet and set me inside a chest. I will not sit on a distant throne, kept safe from the rest of the world lest I spoil or chip. I am not another treasure to count amongst your great wealth, Thorin Oakenshield. Remember that. Please,” she added, her voice wavering just slightly. 

He could think of no way to respond that would not draw her ire again. 

Her brow furrowed, and she looked away, one hand balled inside her pocket, no doubt clutched around her damn ring. 

_Hypocrite_ , he thought sharply, only to realize the depth of his anger, his sudden, fierce loathing of it and her insistence on clutching it like a lifeline. The surge startled him so, he almost didn’t hear what she said before she left him in his rooms, alone.

Her voice was small, another plea. “I’m just going to the ramparts. Don’t follow me.”

He sat in his room until the fire died, until he was surrounded by darkness. The chill of the mountain seeped into his skin, and he felt the pulse of it echo in his chest. He listened to the faint wind coming in from one of the air vents over his head, and imagined the slow breathing of the stone beneath his feet. 

When the Arkenstone was found, all would be right. Bella would understand, when she saw it. He would help the humans, after his people’s future was secure. He was not a monster like that elvish snake. 

Thorin rose, pulling on his boots, knowing full well that sleep would elude him without Bella’s soft snoring to ease his mind. He would look for his heart and he would coax her back. 

If he realized that he didn’t know which heart beat more strongly in his chest in that infinite moment, the thought passed without notice. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have I mentioned that I love you guys? And I would never intentionally hurt you? And that I never, ever lie? <3


	37. Whisper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Quiet Lies" by Matthew Mayfield](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR9NLEr--Z0&index=36&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-)

Bella huddled in her mother’s coat, staring out over the distance between Erebor and Esgaroth, trying her best not to scream. 

Her body was a mass of dull aches and fine nerves. She hadn’t slept more than a few hours a night for the past week. She didn’t know if she was hungry or nauseous, tired or cold. She needed to do _something_ other than stand like a statue on the ramparts, keeping vigil over this rank and festering cavern her future husband called home, but she was frozen, held by a fear she could not shake. 

She was losing him. Every day it grew more obvious that his mind was spiraling. He got angry at the smallest things. He looked at her with fury and rage more often than longing, and worst—indifference. Like the king she had at first thought him to be. Cold, cruel, pompous, with little care for the people who loved him beyond their utility to help him reclaim his damned home. 

Rust filled her mouth. She winced. She hadn’t realized she’d been biting down on her lip so hard. 

If she couldn’t figure out how to help him soon, she was going to go mad herself. It reminded her too closely of watching her mother slowly descend into melancholy after her father’s death. Again, she was helpless as someone she loved lost themselves to a power greater than she was. Again, she felt like a child, small and inconsequential. Not important enough for someone to fight for.

Her eyes burned and she blinked furiously. She would not cry for this. She had not cried in sixteen years, and she would not start again now. Tears were useless. There had to be something she could do, something she could say—some way to make Thorin remember himself. 

_What if this was always him? What if he had simply been pretending at kindness?_

Bella shoved the thought away, fingers curling around the ring in her pocket, purposefully ignoring the stone heavy on her other hip. 

Thorin Oakenshield was a good man. He may not be kind, or decent, but he was good. He was worth saving. She owed it to him to remember that. This sickness was not his fault. She would not lose him like she lost her mother. 

A muffled thump sounded behind her, and she turned with a start. 

“Shit. Of course you’re here.”

Bella scowled as she saw Kíli illuminated in moonlight, a pack slung over his shoulders along with his bow and all his weapons, knowing his intentions at once. “You are not this stupid.”

His mouth twitched, but his movements were jerky, erratic. He was nervous. “I think you’ll that find I am.”

“Kíli,” she murmured, stepping in front of him, as if she could bar his way. She was too small, and he was fast. If he wanted to leave, he would. 

He wasn’t a small, mostly helpless hobbit. 

_I am not helpless_ , she snapped at herself, squaring her shoulders. “I know you want to see her—”

“I can’t stay here, Bella.” Kíli’s voice was firm, certain. He might be nervous, but he was ready. Damn her, but she should have been paying closer attention. She should have known he would try this. “I can’t keep sifting through gold for a stone that’s probably sitting at the bottom of the Long Lake inside Smaug’s rotting belly. I have to know if she’s—” His voice broke, and he shook his head. “I have to make sure she’s all right.”

“I care about Tauriel too,” she murmured, throwing a glance over his shoulder to ensure his brother was not coming in hot on his heels, “but this is not how you leave. Not in the middle of the night like some criminal.”

He grinned a small, weak smile. “I thought of anyone you might appreciate sneaking off in the middle of the night.”

She ignored his attempt at flattery. “Normally, I would. But I for one am not going to be explaining to your brother and uncle _why_ you decided to pop off to Lake-town.” At his silence, she pressed, “I assume you still haven’t told Fíli about Tauriel?”

He his eyes flitted down to his feet once, hedging. “He’s got other things to worry about.”

She held his gaze, between them passing the unspoken concern of what was filling his mind. Fíli was worried about Thorin. They all were. 

“He’ll have another thing to worry about if you disappear,” she said. “How do you think he’ll take that?”

Kíli sagged, running a frantic hand through his hair and pacing. “I’m going mad in here, Bella. I can’t stop seeing Tauriel dead on a bit of driftwood, or burned and screaming, or sitting on the shore of the lake with all the others…” His voice was shaking, vibrating with emotion and desperation. 

He sounded like she felt. _Wrong, wrong, this is all wrong._ “I know,” she murmured, rising up on her toes and tugging him into a hug. “I know. Sweet Shire, I know.”

“You could come with me.”

She stiffened, but shook her head. Part of her wanted to climb down the ramparts and put Erebor behind her, to leave the obscene treasure hoard and simply drop the Arkenstone into the Long Lake, never to be seen again. But…

“I can’t leave him,” she murmured.

Kíli’s grip tightened. “Sometimes I think he doesn’t even know me anymore. The way he looks at me…”

“Don’t say that. He’ll get through this. Your uncle is stronger than this bleeding curse.”

Kíli hugged her so tight her shoulder protested. “I hope—”

“What is this?”

The voice resonated around them, sounding as if the mountain itself had spoken. 

Bella closed her eyes. 

She should have known he would follow. A week, a month ago, he would have let her go. He would have respected her desire for privacy. He had been changing, trying to do better—slowly shifting his stubborn, entrenched heart.

But that was before the dragon-sickness had taken him from her. 

_He is not gone._ She settled back onto her feet, saw Kíli’s flash of fear, which hurt almost more than her own dull disappointment. “I asked you not to follow me,” she said slowly, turning to find Thorin standing in shadow, just inside the walkway. In the darkness, he looked larger than he was, cloaked in black and looming. 

“You did not ask. You commanded.”

“Am I not allowed to do that anymore? Here I thought you found it endearing.”

There was no laugh, no begrudging smile. His form did not shift even slightly in the darkness. “Where are you going, sister-son?”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kíli go perfectly still. 

“Thorin,” she said, slowly. 

“Kíli?” he snapped, voice ringing in the silence of the ramparts, and stepped forward into the moonlight. 

Kíli flinched back just as Bella moved in front of him instinctively. In Thorin’s pale blue eyes burned a rage she had never seen before—not the focused fury of battle, but a simmering, malicious anger. It made him look almost feral.

“I realize what this looks like—”

“Do you?” Thorin took another step forward, and Bella’s hands balled into fists. “Tell me, then.”

“We will happily explain,” she muttered, heart pounding, “if you go back inside and calm down.”

“Do not tell me to be _calm_.”

“Uncle, please,” Kíli said, a bit of his determination coming back into his voice, “this isn’t Bella’s fault. She was just standing here when I…”

“When you what? When you planned to sneak off in the middle of the night?”

“Yes, Kíli had a bad idea,” Bella said, trying to catch and hold Thorin’s focus, “a very bad idea, which I have persuaded him against. He simply wanted to travel to the Long Lake, to see how the people are faring.”

Thorin did not look at her. His rage and attention was focused solely on his nephew. “Is that all?” he sneered. “Your gentle heart could not bear to think of those humans in pain?”

“Thorin,” she snapped, but the damage was done. Kíli’s expression had shuttered, hurt flashing in his eyes. 

“You wished to help them? What have they done to win your concern?”

“They didn’t _win_ anything,” Kíli said quickly, scowling. “They didn’t have to. They’re dying, uncle. We have to help them.”

“How noble,” Thorin muttered, tilting his head in condescension. “Kind Kíli weeps for a few dead humans? You expect me to believe that? No, there is more to this, or you would have asked my leave. You would have _trusted_ me, if your intentions were so pure. Who turned you against me, then? What prize were you offered to betray your king?”

Bella watched him in horror, disgust and dread rising up like bile in her throat. This was not distant, strange anger. This was madness. “What on earth are you saying?”

“He plots against me,” Thorin shouted, his voice ringing in the silent night. “Why else would you sneak off in the dark like a coward?”

“I haven’t betrayed you,” Kíli shouted back in disbelief. “Uncle, I would never—”

“Is that not a pack on your back? Were you not trying to steal the woman I love from me?”

If Bella had not been so frightened, so furious, she might have laughed at the very idea. “Thorin Oakenshield,” she shouted, finally grabbing his attention, “ _listen_ to yourself. You are accusing your nephew of something _insane._ ”

“Is it insane?” His lip curled. “I saw him lusting after you all those months ago. I know—”

“Stop talking, _now_ , while you can still salvage this lunacy.” She tried to think past her panic at seeing him unravel before her very eyes, but she could not get Smaug’s curling laugh out of her head. “You are not thinking clearly.”

“No, I see things as they are.” He rounded on Kíli once more. “I see this child for the liar he is.”

“I’m not trying to _steal_ Bella,” Kíli shouted, defiance springing up in his eyes over the incredulity. He straightened, his chest expanding with false courage. “My heart belongs to someone else.”

_Oh, Kíli, don’t_ , she thought, begging him not to go on. _Not now. Not like this._ There would be time for him to explain, time for him to make his family understand the depth of his affections. But not now. Not wielded as a shield. Not in his own defense. 

“I love Tauriel,” he continued, and she winced. “I _love_ her, uncle, and she was in that city when the dragon attacked. I don’t know if she’s dead or hurt, or gone forever. That’s why I am going. I would have begged you to let me go anyway, but I don’t do it solely for the humans. I have not betrayed you. I would _never_ betray you, but neither can I betray my own heart.”

In the silence that followed, Bella heard footsteps growing louder, more than one pair echoing through the empty halls. She only hoped the coming storm was not so damaging that Thorin could not rebuild when he came again to his senses. 

“That _elf?_ ”Thorin roared just as Fíli and Dwalin came into view. “You think you love that _khurb-takhrabmî zars-tamanâl?”_

From the shocked looks on Dwalin and Fíli’s faces, and the immediate flash of outrage in Kíli’s, she guessed the insult was not a forgivable one. 

“What’s going on?” Fíli asked, ignoring her pointed stare. “What’s—”

“You would betray me for that elvish wraith?” Thorin roared, starting forward, as if he might strike Kíli. 

Bella surged forward, stepping up to Thorin before he could get any nearer. He stopped short a few feet from her, blinking rapidly, as if she’d smacked him. He looked from her to Kíli, eyes widening. Something fractured in their depths, as if a pane of glass had been shattered in the realization. “You knew,” he whispered.

She felt the words as if a piece of jagged glass had flown into her chest as well. 

“I asked Bella not to tell anyone,” Kíli shouted before she could answer for herself. “I knew how you’d react. I knew you wouldn’t approve, but I didn’t think you’d go _mad_.”

“Kíli, stop,” she said quickly, silently begging them all to calm down. “Please,” she added when he looked mutinous. She waited until he met her gaze, until he stepped back with a grimace and closed his mouth, before she turned back to Thorin. “Yes, I knew. Why do you think I brought her to Kíli when he was struck by the Morgul-arrow? I knew she would want to help him, because she cares for him. There is nothing more to this than fresh love, Thorin. Love, and Kíli’s desire to ensure that she is safe. Can you not understand that?”

She could not help but look for Fíli’s reaction over Thorin’s shoulder, knowing how this would needle inside him. He cared so much about Kíli, about wanting to protect him. This was not the way this should have gone. He stared at his brother, a riot of emotions crossing his face—confusion, betrayal, hurt—but as he met her gaze, she saw knowing fear. 

“You expect me to believe one of my own kin has fallen in love—,” Thorin started darkly. 

“Yes, I do,” she snapped. “As if it’s so strange for a dwarf to fall in love with someone outside your race. That would put us in something of an awkward light.”

His eyes flashed in dark humor as he snarled, “And look how well that has turned out for me.”

The words cut into her, hitting that place already ripped open by his growing insanity. She waited for the immediate sign of regret in his eyes, for him to take it back at once, to deflate, and swallow his pride, as he’d done so often over the last six months. He didn’t mean it. He was just trying to be cruel.

But his expression never changed. There was no flicker of hesitation, of realizing what he’d said.

_Nothing_ , Smaug whispered into the back of her mind. 

“You stupid boy,” Thorin said, glaring over her head at Kíli with almost bared teeth. “You’ve been fooled into thinking this she-devil loves you? It is a plot by her king to sow discord in my Company, to turn you all against me.”

Kíli just shook his head, eyes wide in disbelief. “You’re raving.”

“ _Raving_ , am I?” Thorin roared. “The trickery of elves is well known to all dwarrows, at least those who still retain use of their wits. What would she find in a cravenly pup like you? She has ensnared you. She is _using_ you.”

_He is using you, little bird. You mean nothing to him._

“No, she’s not,” Bella said, trying to force some strength into her own voice.

“You expect me to believe you?” Thorin shouted in outrage. “You demand my trust and yet you hide _this_ —”

“And I was right to do so,” she shouted back, dragging up some shred of anger to arm herself against him. “You are reacting even _worse_ than I thought you would. Tauriel hasn’t tricked or ensnared him. Thranduil hasn’t sent her to spy on you. She’s been cast out of Mirkwood because she _saved_ Kíli. She risked her life for his. What on earth could she possibly want so badly that she would go to all these lengths?”

But she knew, in the cold fury of his eyes, and the manic, raging twist of his mouth. It was the Arkenstone. Thorin could not think beyond that damn stone.

“Tell me you are not party to this,” he said, no pleading or panic in his eyes—only anger, and suspicion. “Tell me you are not colluding with that snake.”

“Thorin, _think_ about what you’re saying.”

“You snuck through those tunnels for days without telling me where you went.”

“ _Because I was trying to get you out_ ,” she shrieked, her own temper starting to unravel in the face of his. She knew she should stop, that she was only making this worse. Dimly, she saw more of the Company appearing in the shadows, drawn by their shouting, but she couldn’t think beyond Thorin’s crazed anger. How was she supposed to convince him? _How_ was she supposed to pull him back from this?

His eyes were unfocused, staring over her into the air as he spoke quickly, maddeningly. “He has corrupted my family at last. After all these years, he has finally wrapped his witchling fingers round my throat. He will stop at nothing to steal the Arkenstone from me, that—”

Bella could barely think amidst the panic pounding in her heart. “Thranduil doesn’t want the Arkenstone! No one wants the Arkenstone!”

“No?” he screamed, rounding once more on Kíli. “Turn out your pack. If you have not hidden it from me, intending to sneak off now in the dead of night and give it to him, to _ruin_ your people for good, then you have nothing to fear!”

Fíli started forward, certainty forming on his expression. “Uncle, this is enough. You’re tired, and upset. This is a conversation best saved—”

“I will say when it’s enough,” Thorin shouted, eyes locked on Kíli’s blank, slack expression. “I am your _king_.” He rounded on Fíli. “Or are you in on this as well? Have both my sister-sons betrayed me?”

“Thorin,” Dwalin muttered where he still stood in the shadow of the entrance, concern shining in his eyes, “you don’t know what you’re saying.”

“All of you, then?” Thorin turned in a circle, spearing his gaze into each member of his Company. “I have brought you here, won back your home, only for you to abandon me now? Have you all turned against me?”

It was the shock and fear in their eyes, the immediate pain of seeing their king accuse them all of something they had never considered, not even in their darkest thoughts, that finally broke her. 

“They haven’t betrayed you, Thorin,” she said, forcing herself to reach into her pocket, to draw out the Arkenstone with shaking, stiff fingers—maybe Balin was wrong, maybe it would help him. 

She found the old dwarf’s eyes, and saw a knowing, painful regret. He had thought so much of his king, of his friend. To see him fall so far…

Thorin jerked around, mouth open in a snarl, eyes livid with fury—and froze.

The Arkenstone sat in her upheld palm, glowing with a watery, lovely shine. She felt the eyes of every dwarf on the ramparts fall upon it. The night seemed to hold its breath as first confusion, and then awareness broke through Thorin’s anger. He stared, and his expression cleared. 

For one brilliant moment, she thought that perhaps it had worked. 

“No one has betrayed you, Thorin,” she said gently, heart thudding in her throat. “Your Company loves you. I love you. You know that.” He did not react, eyes glued to the stone, watching it with a sick fascination that made her gut twist. It was longing, and love. A perversion of the same look he had given her the night she had agreed to marry him. “You are not well. It’s the dragon-sickness. You told me you might face it when you got here. You warned me and I…” She faltered as he finally met her gaze. His eyes were wide, empty of everything except pain. “I was trying to help you.”

The silence stretched on, until he finally shook his head, looking blank, incredulous, so like Kíli had only moments before. “Help me?”

“This stone is driving you mad, Thorin. You are obsessed. It isn’t worth what you think it is. It isn’t worth jeopardizing the love of your family and friends. It isn’t worth—”

“The affections of a lying thief?”

The breath knocked from her chest with a sharp exhale, as if she’d been struck by a battering ram. A ripple went through the watching dwarves, but she couldn’t tear her eyes from Thorin’s growing fury. It was worse, so much worse than it had been before. For it was focused now, entirely, on her. 

“Is it worth the manipulations of a wanton halfling?” he asked slowly, voice low and rumbling like a coming storm. Every word whipped like the back of his hand across her face, and she fought the urge to stagger back. “All those months… I knew the wizard had forced you on me for a reason. I _knew_ it, and you made me believe otherwise with your clever, forked tongue. You _played_ me for a fool.”

“Stop,” she muttered, blinking against the forming tears in her eyes. She would not cry at this. It was the stone. It was only the stone. None of this was real. He could still come back.

“Why else would I think you were fated to be mine?” His lip curled, loathing and disgust shining in his cold, pale eyes—eyes that were the same as Azog’s, who burned into her and gripped her with such vile malignity that she fought for breath. “You? _You?_ A lowly, insignificant halfling? A girl of no real importance ripped from a thatch of weeds and given a wizard’s foul sorcery to twist me into thinking I _loved_ you?”

_Nothing. Nothing. Nothing._

Her hand began to shake and her jaw clenched against the sob threatening to spill from her lips. 

_You are nothing._

Her fingers fumbled for the ring in her pocket, to clutch it. Her fingers cut against her father’s paring knife, and she felt blood seep warm into the fabric of her dress. _It’s not true. It’s not true._

“Thorin,” Balin said, his voice low and quiet, “stop this. Now.”

“Tell them,” he said, a sharp laugh cutting his words, “tell them of your foul magic. You speak to the birds and twist shadows to your call. You bend great men to your words and sow ruin in your wake. No wonder your Shire worked so hard to cast you out. Tell them of your false idols made from pretty flowers. Tell them how you draw spirits to your will. _Tell them!_ ” 

His final, furious shout broke through her frozen disbelief. 

And in its placed poured anger, hot and burning. 

Her fingers curled around the Arkenstone as her heart drummed a steady, pounding pace in her chest. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” she said, voice wavering despite her best efforts. “You’d rather I’d seduced or tricked you. You’d rather I’d used some dark magic to spell you into loving me than admit that you have _failed_.”

“You _dare_ —”

“Yes, I bloody well _dare_.” She thought of the worst things she could say, every whispered confession and unspoken fear, and forged them into a blade. “Accuse me all you like. Invent stories and blame your family, but it will not change what you are—a weak, selfish man clinging to a kingship which he earned only through the deaths of better men.”

The words fell from her mouth before she knew what she was saying, and she wished she could take them back. They were lies, all of them lies, but her hands were shaking and the words kept coming—so bright was her anger and so deep was her pain. She had trekked halfway across the world for him. She had loved him, almost _died_ for him, and this was how he treated her?

“You are a coward, Thorin, and a _fool_ if you think this stone will make you a king. A better man once told me that much,” her voice was breaking now, and the cold fury in his eyes made her feel small, so very small. “But I’ll not stand in your way. If you choose this cold rock—”

“Instead of you?” he sneered. “ _Gladly._ ”

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she felt herself break, all the careful lies she’d crafted for herself toppling and tumbling down atop one another in a heap at the base of her heart. Her chin trembled, but she clenched her jaw.

She would not weep for him. She would not weep for anyone.

“Take it then,” she spat, stepping forward until she was close enough to shove it into his chest, “take it so I can be rid of you and this nightmare you dragged me on. _Take it_.”

His eyes flashed to the stone and back up to her, as if she might trick him in this, her final act of betrayal. But the pull of the Arkenstone was greater even than his suspicion, and he snatched it from her hand. With one last look at her, disgust and loathing in his once-kind eyes, he cradled the Arkenstone to his chest, and turned. “I want you gone by sunrise,” he warned in a low rumble.

She tried to laugh, to pour every ounce of cruelty she held within her into hurting him, like he was hurting her. “You think I want to spend another minute in this place? You think I want to see you destroy everything you’ve worked for, everything your family has worked for?”

He began to walk away, ignoring her now that he had his prize at long last. 

That, more than anything else, hurt the most. 

“And to think I almost agreed to live here with you in this _dank_ ruin,” she screamed, not caring that the others were watching, not caring that she was shivering in the chill night air, not caring, not caring, _not_ caring. “I almost signed my life away to a madman and a grim cave stinking of dragon shit and mold. I hope you _choke_ on that stone. I hope that stone chills your bed at night and fills your days with emptiness and loss, because that is what you are choosing. I hope you die with that stone being the last thing your greedy eyes ever see. Live well in your hard-won kingdom, Thorin Oakenshield, for no one else will while you are king, you petty, thuggish _tyrant._ ”

His shoulders stiffened, and though he didn’t turn to her, it was enough. She had hit her mark.

“Get. _Out_ ,” he growled. 

“ _Gladly_ ,” she snarled, pouring every ounce of malice and spite she had left into her voice. “Nothing would please me more than leaving you to your rotting _tomb_ of a mountain.”

She had only a moment to realize what she had said, to understand the full, unforgivable curse she had laid at his feet, before he turned and lunged for her. 

Time stuttered. His hand closed around her throat, slamming her back into the cold stone of the rampart wall. A few of the others cried out, but in her shock, she couldn’t pick out who. Her mind went blank, and she knew only the crushing grip of his hand and the searing rage in his eyes. 

Had it only been a few hours ago that he had been holding her, caressing her, his eyes warm and loving?

Dark spots crowded into her vision. She couldn’t breathe. Blood pounded in her ears as her feet scrambled for purchase on the stone. He was lifting her up over the rampart wall. “I should kill you for insulting my people,” he roared in a voice she did not know, a voice which thrummed like the steady roar of the dragon in the back of her mind. “You filthy, lying _witch!_ ”

Her fingers brushed the ring in her pocket, a thread pulling at her mind, and she reacted without thought. She slipped it on, that blissful, deadening silence descending around her, numbing the pain. Cries of alarm sounded faint and far away. She whipped out her father’s knife and, without a conscious thought, slashed it across Thorin’s face. 

She caught him in the cheek, just enough to draw a thin line of blood. His grip slackened, and she slammed her knee into his crotch, going through the motions without rage or adrenaline, as if someone else were controlling her body. 

He doubled over, and it was all the freedom she needed to break from his hold and pitch herself over the rampart wall. She scrambled for hand holds, ripping the pads of her fingers and the skin of her knees, half-falling the distance to the crumbling bridge leading off into the desolate plains which stretched on until the ruins of Esgaroth. 

She didn’t think. She didn’t stop. She didn’t look back. 

She simply ran, and ran, until the sun rose over a red and ruined world. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *hides*


	38. A Cold Wind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Kingdom Come" by The Civil Wars](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9GEx_uK8iI&index=37&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-)

Bella woke to the smell of burning sausages. 

In that hazy, unfixed space before waking, when she could still pretend that nothing was wrong and the nightmares that had gripped her last night were only figments of her imagination, she scowled at Bombur’s burning of breakfast. He was usually so careful, treating each morsel like tiny pieces of art to ensure a clean, even roast, just black enough to make one feel rustic, but still tasty and soft on the inside. He was a master of his craft, which Bella had seen right away. Sometimes, she would sit by the fire and watch him turn each piece of meat after an unknown, arcane interval, humming to himself under his breath. When he spoke, which was rare, he reminded her of her father, how he used to wax poetic about the right wine to pair with his stews and pies, how to get the salt just right to bring out the meat’s natural flavor. It had been a comfort, in those first few months on the road, especially once he’d allowed her to introduce a few herbs into their meals. Dwarven cooking was simple, and elegant, but she had missed her thyme and rosemary. Bombur had never said it, but she guessed he’d only accepted her input to make her feel more at home. 

This burnt, acrid smell should have warned her right away that something was wrong, but she was tired, and as she swam to consciousness, she felt the full extent of her fatigue. It took her a moment to remember why she hurt so much, and then it all fell on her like a storm.

Her feet burned, aching with a sharp, throbbing pain. Her knees were raw, her throat so tight she could barely swallow back a wave of bile rising at the emptiness in her stomach. Her shoulder pulsed with a sharp, stinging pain that seemed to reach deep inside her chest and strangle her heart. 

A curse and a mumble finally dragged her into the world, and she blinked one eye reluctantly open. The sun was dim behind a veil of clouds, and the landscape was cast in grey and brown. The last of the year’s colors had finally leeched from this place, leaving it desolate and barren. She lay beside a small campfire, over which a figure was crouched. 

It took her a moment to recognize Kíli’s bow and quiver, his worn leather coat, the long trails of his messy brown hair. That in of itself should have been a cause for alarm. Kíli had only attempted to cook once, to results so disastrous he’d nearly poisoned Glóin with the wrong berries and given the rest of them a meal so foul they’d gone hungry instead of trying to eat it. 

And then she remembered the rest, and the pain in her body roared to life with a vengeance. 

She had run all night, until the sun had begun to rise with a bloody glow over the Long Lake. Thinking back now, she couldn’t imagine how she’d pushed herself so hard and so far, without water or food or rest. She had ran for hours. 

She shuddered. It must have been the ring. The same thing had happened to her in Mirkwood, when she’d clung to that barrel and held on in the raging, freezing river even when she would have let go, when she _should_ have let go. She felt for it instinctively, where it would have been sitting safe on the fourth finger of her right hand—but it was not there. 

Terror gripped her cold and she jerked upright, patting down her clothes and searching through her pockets. 

“Bella?” Kíli asked in surprise as he turned around. “Thought for sure you’d—”

She ignored him, twisting around to search the ground, running her hands across the dirt. Had it fallen off in the night? Had she not realized? If it had fallen off as she ran, she’d never find it now. She imagined searching the entire breadth and width of the plains between Dale and Erebor, combing through every copse and thicket, every hole and warren. If it was gone…

“Hey, what’s—”

“Ring,” she croaked, coughing as her throat spasmed and burned. It had to be here. She couldn’t have lost it now, not after everything she’d gone through. Its absence screamed inside the back of her mind, as if she’d lost a limb and was only just now feeling the pain. _No, please, please not this too…_

“Oh, sure, it was sitting next to you when I found—”

She rounded on Kíli, not even seeing him in her panic and outrage. His hand was outstretched, and in it sat her ring. Her pretty, marvelous ring. She lunged for it, not minding his cry of alarm. The second her fingers closed around it, she felt a wave of rightness, of comfort. Scrambling back to give herself space, she hunched over it, staring at its beautiful golden hue, reassuring herself that it was fine, it was hers. It would never leave her. It had been a mistake only, a little mistake that it had fallen off. 

Her throat was still burning, and faint, shuddering coughs broke through her lips, but she couldn’t think beyond her relief. 

She didn’t know how long she sat like that, hunched over her ring and silently reassuring herself that she was fine, she was fine—before Kíli said softly, “Bella, look at me.”

Part of her grew angry. So he just found a ring on the ground next to her and assumed it was his? What was he doing, stealing her things? How would he like it if she took his bow and hid it from her? The ring was hers, only hers, and that idiot boy shouldn’t have touched it. Now he was trying to distract her from it, to take it from her again, and she wouldn’t have it, she would _not_.

But as the seconds dragged on, and she felt the world slide back into place, her hand dropped into her lap, and she looked up. 

Kíli’s warm brown eyes were tight with fear. He crouched a few feet from her, the fire at his back. He was very still, as if watching an animal for any sign of danger. 

“Kíli,” she breathed, and then coughed, hand flying to her neck as it throbbed in pain, “what…” That strange, burning anger faded, and she was left with only a hollow, aching awareness.

He held out a water skin slowly, his eyes never leaving hers. She hesitated, but accepted it without protest. The water helped some, but it mostly reminded her how severely ragged she felt. Her stomach growled and her head pulsed. A tremor ran through her body. 

“Do you remember what happened last night?” he asked, his voice deceptively calm. 

She nodded. “How’d you find me?”

“Your bird friend led me to you. Found you curled up under that rock.” He nodded to a boulder over her shoulder. “Least you had enough sense not to lie down in the middle of a field.”

Her bird. The thrush, presumably. It was alive after all. The news should have made her happy, but she was finding it hard to feel anything at all other than tired, and empty. 

“What are you doing here?” she muttered, taking another sip of water. 

His expression darkened, and instead of answering, he turned to put together a plate of burnt sausages and lumpy griddle cakes. He sat before her and took the canteen, trading it for the plate. “Eat.”

She thought about refusing. Her stomach hurt enough that she might just throw it all up again soon after, but the determination in his eyes, and the utter lack of concern she felt for anything happening to her, was enough to override her feeble obstinance. She moved in slow jerks, as if her limbs had grown leaden and she was unaccustomed to their new weight. 

“After,” he started, stumbling over his words—hesitating just long enough to conjure a riot of memories in her own mind, “everything fell to shit, I managed to slip away. Figured you would head for Lake-town. It was easy enough to follow your trail, even if…”

She looked up to see him staring at her palm, still sitting open on her lap next to her plate. Her fingers curled protectively around the ring and she slipped it into her pocket. Out of his sight.

“How’d you do it? Disappear?”

She chewed on a hard cake, shoving down the immediate urge to tell him to mind his own business. It didn’t matter anymore. Keeping it from them all seemed silly, now. “I found it in the goblin caves. It’s just a magic ring, Kíli. I don’t know how it works, or why I can talk to birds, or—”

“Hey,” he murmured, edging closer, “I’m not accusing you of anything.”

No. That was someone else, wasn’t it?

“It’s a neat trick, that’s all.” He smiled, forcing a bit of light into his worried eyes. “It does explain some things. We all figured you had something up your sleeve, but a magic ring is another thing entirely. That’s…well.”

Had they all been talking about her behind her back, then? Wondering what kind of person was able to slip in and out of the Woodland Realm without being seen? “You should go back,” she muttered. Fíli would be worried sick. He might even be out looking for Kíli now, if Dwalin hadn’t stopped him. He’d probably had to knock Fíli over the head to keep him from charging out into the night to look for his brother. 

“Can’t. I’m banished.”

She tensed. His eyes were hard and grim, a maturity coming over his face that looked odd on his fine, young features. “No,” she breathed.

“I’m afraid so,” he said with a bravado which didn’t fool her for a second. His fingers shook as he plucked a sausage from her plate and popped it into his mouth, sprawling down next to her with a forced nonchalance. “Anyone who went after you would be forever banned from Erebor, upon pain of death. Kin not excluded.” He hesitated, and then added softly, “Thorin was very specific about that part.”

At his name, Bella’s hand jerked on her plate, spilling a few cakes onto the ground. 

“You’re twitchy today,” Kíli murmured in half-hearted attempt at a tease, grabbing up the cakes and blowing dirt from them. He set them all back on her plate, which he placed on the ground, and then pulled her white-knuckled fist into one of his hands. “I know what you’re going to say—”

“Don’t do this for me, Kíli,” she stammered, finding her voice and a bit of fear through the dull haze of her mind. He couldn’t throw away his life, his _family_ , for her. “I’m not worth it.”

“You are,” he said at once, “and even if you weren’t, I still would. That was beyond—what happened… It doesn’t matter. I’m here, and I’m not going back. So don’t try convincing me of anything.”

“Fíli—”

“Agreed that one of us needed to make sure you didn’t wander too far on your own. I had one foot out the window already, and…” His grip tightened. “Someone needed to stay—with him.”

Her chest constricted painfully. She closed her eyes as pain seeped into her—pain that went bone deep and rang in the hollows of her heart. 

Someone needed to stay with Thorin. Just because she was too insignificant to help him, it didn’t mean that someone else, someone he knew better, and loved more fiercely, couldn’t get through to him. It made such stark sense that she hated herself for not thinking of it before. He’d only known her six months, and they’d fought just as much as often as they’d not. It would never have been her. If she hadn’t been so stubborn and proud, she might have seen that.

“So,” he murmured, nudging her gently with his elbow, “you’re stuck with me. No way around it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Enough of that,” he said harshly, startling her into looking at him. “You and I both know that none of this is your fault. So, you kept the Arkenstone? It’s a good thing you did. You’re the only one brave enough to have not given it over right away. All of us could see what was happening, but none of us did anything. It’s not your fault he—” He exhaled, shaking his head. “This is bigger than you, Bella. I know that’s a bit of a shock to someone with an ego the size of yours, but you couldn’t have done anything different. Don’t you dare start blaming yourself.”

She just looked at him. Anything she might have said in contradiction died in her throat. He was wrong, but it helped more than he knew to hear him say it anyway. 

“Listen to me,” he muttered with a grimace. “I sound like Fíli.”

“Fíli’s a better cook,” she managed.

He blinked, and his smile grew wide. “You are right about that. I almost tried porridge, but we didn’t have enough water.”

“Good thing, or we’d be covered in slop right about now.”

He picked up one of her less-burnt sausages and held it out to her. “It’s not pretty, but it’s something. I know you. You’re going to be ravenous soon, and I won’t have you start nibbling on my fingers and toes.”

Bella ate as much as she dared under Kíli’s watchful gaze. He didn’t push for her feelings and he didn’t ask her about the previous night, though she knew he wanted to. He’d never been good at keeping his mouth shut, but it seemed he was trying, for her. 

Her gratitude flagged somewhat when she guessed his true intentions for leaving Erebor. He wanted to see Tauriel. It shouldn’t have surprised her so much that he’d leave once all the chaos had settled down. The only reason he hadn’t already been gone was because of her, because she’d stopped him. He might be here to look after her, but he hadn’t left _for_ her. Not even Fíli had done that. Family was more important than some stray hobbit they felt they owed something to for saving their lives. 

The sun continued to rise, and the clouds continued to block its light. She was cold, shivering almost constantly now. Kíli saw this right away and shoved her into his coat without asking, buttoning it with a challenge in his eyes. She didn’t argue, not when her body ached and her mind couldn’t seem to pull itself out of its stupor for longer than a few minutes. 

Part of her was still trapped inside the Lonely Mountain. Still trapped with Thorin. Perhaps it would always be so, that no matter how far she ran and how thoroughly she tried to forget, he would own a part of her, and that part would never again be whole. The thought hurt too much to consider, so she shoved it aside and tried to focus on her feet, still burning and throbbing after her nighttime flight over the plains. 

Kíli led her forward, and she followed. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe the farther she went from that bleeding Arkenstone, the better she would feel. Maybe it would stop hurting. In time.

_More lies, little bird_ , Smaug’s voice, warped and ragged, seemed to whisper down her spine. _But you can’t fool me. I see you for what you are._

They came upon Dale by midday, and Bella nearly collapsed at the sight of a throng of people gathered in its courtyards, milling over the tiers. The refugees of Lake-town had set up a settlement inside the ruin of their ancestral home. For some reason, the sight was even worse than finding them all huddled together on the shore of the lake. They had fled one burning home for another, the only difference being the embers of Dale had long been cold, and Lake-town was still a smoldering wreck. 

“She’d be there,” Kíli murmured, more to himself than to Bella, as they stood a hundred yards from the edge of Dale on the old road, watching humans carry dirty rags back and forth from a trail toward the lake, helping wounded trudge along to find some kind of shelter. “She would have gone with them to help.”

“Of course,” Bella said, trying to sound reassuring. “Tauriel cares about people.”

“She does.” Kíli nodded, screwing up his face in courage and looking down at her. “You want to stay outside?”

Stay outside and avoid the proof that she’d destroyed thousands of people’s lives with her stupidity? Yes, she did. But she wouldn’t. There was enough of her left to know that she would hate herself forever if she didn’t at least try. 

She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak, and started forward. Kíli fell into step beside her, and they walked into Dale. 

If she had thought they looked dirty and worn thin when she first saw these people in Lake-town, there was no comparison now. Their clothes hung in tatters, most of them burned into shreds. Hands shook, backs hunched, bandages wrapped around heads, arms. Their eyes were haunted, and they seemed all to startle at the smallest sounds. And as soon as the humans saw them, those eyes turned hard. 

“This was a bad idea,” Kíli muttered, doing his best to smile as they drew attention. A few humans had started following them through the broken, pale remnants of buildings, staring daggers at the backs of their heads as they tried to look for someone they recognized. “We should leave.”

Bella was about to agree, when a high voice called out, “Bella!”

She turned to see Sigrid pushing through their trailing crowd, scowling at the ones who didn’t move out of her way at once. 

A flicker of warmth glowed inside Bella’s chest. One of them had survived. And though Sigrid’s face was drawn and tired just like every other human they’d passed, she didn’t seem to be mourning the loss of her family. That, or the girl was remarkably well-adapted to loss. 

“Da was wondering when you’d send word,” she said a little breathlessly, coming to a stop in front of them. She smiled in relief, her full cheeks red with exertion. “We thought the worst.”

She looked between them, and tears sprang up in her eyes. Without another word, she pulled Bella into a hug, her gangly limbs holding her with a fierce, shaking strength. “Bless you, Bella Baggins. Without your warning of the dragon’s weakness, we might have all died.”

That frail flicker of warmth winked out, leaving cold, hard guilt in its place. Sigrid was _thanking_ her? Without her, Lake-town might never have been attacked at all.

Sigrid released her and smiled a little awkwardly at Kíli, looking then like all of her fifteen years. “Ah—you’ll be wanting to see Da, I expect.” Her eyes darted back over her shoulder. “There’s some who’ve been stirred up by the Master, looking to get some kind of revenge. The idiots.” She shook her head. “Come on. Da’s set up on the upper level. They shouldn’t give you trouble if you come with me.”

Kíli met her gaze as they followed, her own guilt reflected in his eyes. Of course they wanted revenge against the Company who had gone into the mountain and woken that beast from its centuries-long slumber. They climbed up the tiers of the old city, and passed the empty square where Bella had snuck off two weeks ago to meet Thorin out of the watchful eyes of their companions. It was full of refugees now, and the barrel on which he had placed her, slowly pushing her skirts up around her waist while whispering dangerously lewd compliments into her burning ears, had been turned into a table covered in broken heirlooms. Shame roiled in her stomach, and she fought the urge to sink down in the middle of the road and curl up in the ash and dirt.

They found Bard hunched over a table, issuing commands in a steady voice. He had changed much since the last time Bella saw him. There was no hesitation in his eyes now, no careful silence. As they walked up to the table and he straightened, he looked very much like a general commanding his troops. He looked like a king. 

_Power corrupts_ , he had said to her the last time they spoke. She hated that he’d turned out to be right. 

When his eyes found hers, they were inscrutable. “I’m glad to see you both alive,” he said, dismissing the humans around him, all save for his son, who watched them with something like fear. Bard looked between her and Kíli, and his expression hardened. “I had started to fear the worst.”

Bella couldn’t open her mouth. She was frozen, unable to voice even the weakest reply. 

“We’re all alive,” Kíli said, skating awkwardly over her silence. “I’m sorry we couldn’t let you know sooner.”

“I understand.” Bard’s eyes narrowed and slid from Kíli back to her, missing nothing in her expression. He made her feel as if she were being illuminated, as if one look from his dark eyes could tell him everything he wanted to know about a person. It used to frustrate her, but now…

Now all she felt was small. 

“Bain, Sigrid,” he said gently, “fetch our guests something to eat and drink. They look as if they’ve had a long morning.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Bella said, finding her voice at last. He couldn’t offer them food, not when they must be struggling to feed their own people. “Don’t waste what you have on us.”

Bard’s expression didn’t falter. “I appreciate your concern, but we can spare a little something. It’s a blessing you didn’t come with the red-faced one.”

Kíli let out a weak laugh as Bain and Sigrid left. “Ah, Bard. I was wondering if you might be able to help me find someone.”

Bard’s mouth twitched. “I think you’ll find the elf you seek on the second floor of the southeast tower. We’ve been fortunate to have a skilled healer visit us from Mirkwood, and she has set up something of a ward. I’m sure she would welcome help, Master Kíli.”

Kíli’s eyes widened. “You…” He swallowed. “Right. I won’t ask how you know.” He took one step, only to freeze and turn back to Bella. “Ah, we’ll go once we eat, then?”

Bella tried for an encouraging smile. “Go ahead.”

“I give you my word to look out for Bella,” Bard said, eyeing her closely. When she didn’t respond, he frowned.

Kíli didn’t seem convinced. “I don’t have to go right now.”

“Yes, you do. I’ll be fine with Bard.” And she would be, she knew. Even if he was planning on some kind of capture and torture for going back on her word and letting his city be destroyed, she was of half a mind to let him do whatever he wanted. At least it would stop the hole inside her from growing any larger.

Kíli pressed a kiss to her cheek, whispered, “I’ll be right back. I just need to see her with my own eyes.”

For the first time since waking to find him at her side that morning, she saw hope and excitement in his face. He looked like his normal self, even skipping, though he had a bit of a limp from his injured leg—she hadn’t noticed before now. 

She watched him go with jealousy bleeding into her chest.

“You don’t look well.”

Bella heaved herself up to sit on the chair across from Bard, not even minding that his oversized human furniture made her feel like a child. “I’m not well. But you know that.”

“Do I? As far as I knew, you were all dead. Here I find you seated at my table. Alone. It was not too long ago that I would have expected your king to follow soon after and glower at me for even daring to look at you.”

She winced, turning slightly in a futile attempt to hide her reaction. _My king. Was he ever my king?_

“Strange indeed,” Bard murmured, pulling up a chair to sit nearer her, “to think he would have let you out of his sight so soon after facing that beast. Smaug was gravely injured when he descended upon us. It must have been a terrible fight.”

“It was.” The fire burned in her mind’s eye, the beast’s shrieking cries and its mad voice ripped into her like its talons had ripped into Thorin. It had only lasted a few minutes, but she knew she would remember that fight for the rest of her days. 

“Did you find some other foe in the mountain, to leave those bruises on your neck?”

She held his gaze in silence, not bothering to deny it. 

“Is that why you left?”

She had expected to feel something at it being voiced—anger, shame, guilt. But there was nothing except a small ache, an ache that was familiar now. “Partly.”

Bard’s expression hardened, and for a moment she saw true anger flash in his eyes. “Bastard.”

She didn’t want to talk about this, not ever. She wanted to forget the sore skin around her throat. She wanted to ignore the growing pity in his eyes. She wanted to banish the memory entirely, even if she had to erase herself to be rid of it. “How many did you lose?”

He sat back with a deep sigh. “We don’t know yet. Not as many as we thought, but that is little comfort to those families who mourn the unlucky dead.” 

A yawning, aching wind howled through the hole in her heart. Every one of those deaths were on her conscience. Every single motherless child or brotherless sister. All of them had her to blame. 

“We might have lost many more if not for you.”

She found him watching her with soft eyes, a furrow in his brow. 

“The beast was hurt, but dragons are known to wreak havoc to their last breath. If I had known not where to fire my arrow, where to pierce its heart, it might have destroyed us all.”

“It wouldn’t have destroyed anyone if not for me,” she muttered. The truth tore on its way out, leaving her hands shaking. “I goaded the dragon into a fury. If not for me, if might still have been sleeping, and your town… Your town might have survived.”

Bard took a moment to answer, watching her closely. “If you want to blame yourself, I won’t stop you, but you should know that I don’t. Neither do I blame that—” He exhaled slowly. “That sad excuse for a king under the mountain. I understand now what the loss of one’s home can do to a person.”

“That doesn’t excuse what we did.”

“No, but it explains it.”

Bella frowned and looked down at her hands, fighting the urge to slip on her ring and disappear into the throngs of ragged humans, to lose herself in someone else’s misery if only to forget her own. 

“Can we expect no help from him then?”

Her hands balled into fists. There _was_ something she could do. It would mean little, in the long run, but it might be a start. 

“It’s not a question of expectation,” she muttered. “It’s a question of what is owed.” 

Thorin may have lost himself, but Fíli had not. If Thorin proved himself unworthy of the task of managing Erebor, she knew at least one dwarf in the Lonely Mountain who would honor her wishes. Probably more than one, if she were being honest. 

She looked up with a sharp inhale. “One-fourteenth of the treasure in that mountain belongs to me. It’s yours. Use it to rebuild Dale and give your people something better than they had before. Use it to leave those shores and never look back. Whatever you want. It was always going to be wasted on me.”

He blinked, and his face transformed. Shock made him younger, the lines around his eyes softening and the years falling off him like shed clothes. “That is no mean sum.”

“No, it isn’t. I have no idea how much it actually is, mind. I didn’t stay long enough to count it out myself.” She hardened her voice against a waver, and continued. “But it’s more than you’ve got now, I’d wager, and enough to make a new start.”

She looked up, grabbed a nearby blank sheet of paper and quill, and began to scribble out a contract. It wasn’t much in the way of verbosity, but it was firm, unyielding. She relinquished all claim to the funds owed to her from the successful completion of her part of the quest, on the sole condition that Bard replace her in the distribution of treasure to the Company. She had found the Arkenstone and returned it, after all. She’d done everything that was asked of her. To Bard and his descendants upon his passing, she gave her share—one-fourteenth of all the wealth contained in Erebor. 

She hesitated at imaging how Thorin might have reacted, had she told him her intention before he succumbed to the dragon-sickness. He would have bellowed and whined, paced around for a bit before conceding that she was, after all, the _worst_ burglar he had ever met. She would have smiled and winked at him, and his frustration would have melted into something soft and simple, something only for her. 

But that was before. All of that was gone now. 

“You don’t have to do this, Bella,” Bard murmured, his brow furrowed deep and watching her with hard, knowing eyes. 

“Yes, I do.” She finished, blinking rapidly as she signed her name and blew on the paper to let it dry. “It’s as much a selfish act on my part, as I’d rather strangle myself than see even a coin of that—” She cut herself off before she could say more. Perhaps she was still able to feel something, poor consolation as her hatred of all that wealth was now. “You should know that it might be a bit of trouble getting it. But don’t give up. Fíli, the crowned prince, will honor this. Balin too,” she added, knowing that he would never allow a contract to go unfulfilled. He was old-fashioned, like that. 

“I take it you don’t plan on remaining to see it honored?”

Her hand shook as she held the paper out, her answer forming before she fully understood the implication of his question. “No. I don’t think I do.”

She’d been coming to this all day, from the moment she threw herself over the rampart wall last night. The farther away she got from Erebor, from Thorin, the better. She would not stay where she was not wanted. 

But where on this lonely world _was_ she wanted?

Bard took the paper without hesitation. “Never took him for a violent man.”

“He’s not—” She had to stop herself before she continued, weighing her words. Part of her wanted to tell Bard everything, that he was now living next to a king who had lost his mind to a curse of greed. Surely it was his business to know. 

But she couldn’t. No matter the words she’d thrown at Thorin in her grief and pain, she wouldn’t betray him now. Damn her for it, but she didn’t think she ever would. 

“It’s not like that,” she murmured.

“I’ve known enough men who beat their wives to know exactly what it’s like.”

“Well, I wasn’t his wife, so you _don’t_ know, actually,” she said sharply. “It isn’t as simple as you think. I’d rather it were, in fact, so if you would please keep your opinions to yourself—” She broke off, hearing the cruel thread in her voice. A wave of weariness settled over her shoulders. “I’m sorry, Bard. I know you’re only concerned. I shouldn’t berate you for that. But I will not let you hold me up as a reason to fuel tensions with Erebor. My business is my own, and does not belong to any king, kind or cruel or somewhere in-between.” 

He watched her regain her composure, his face impassive apart from a growing question in his eyes. “There was a rumor, back in the days of Old Dale, that the gold in the mountain was cursed. That it drove the last dwarven king mad.”

She held his gaze firmly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Silence hung between them. The sounds of the city rose up to meet her, layering one over the other like sheets of dust. Just a week ago this ruin had been empty. She had snuck off with Thorin and spent a few blissful, lovely hours in the light of a small candle, huddled together for warmth and talking of stupid, inconsequential things. She had asked him about his work as a blacksmith, and he’d told her how to stoke a forge so it was the right temperature—just hot enough that it burned so bright your skin tightened in its presence, but not hot enough to allow it to lose control. 

She was saved the trouble of holding Bard’s pitying gaze by the entrance of Sigrid and Bain, bringing thin stew and watered-down ale. She ate everything she was given, not wanting to waste even a single drop of their generosity. Tauriel arrived soon after, heading straight for Bella and wrapping her in a hug so tight she might have been crushed, if not for Kíli’s intervention. They didn’t speak about the dragon, or how she had survived, but from the way Bard and his children watched her, with respect and not a small bit of awe, Bella guessed the elf had saved many in the chaos.

She tried not to watch Kíli and Tauriel as the day went on, but she couldn’t help it. They seemed drawn to each other as they all helped cut bandages and clean linens, find firewood and organize what meager stores of food the refugees had managed to salvage. Kíli watched Tauriel with wide, star-filled eyes, as if he had never before seen someone so lovely. He made stupid jokes and fumbled the simplest tasks, but Tauriel seemed to grow radiant under his gaze. She had a permanent, small smile pulling at her lips, and she constantly fiddled with her mass of auburn hair like a teenaged-girl at festival. She laughed at every single one of Kíli’s jokes, and more than once caught whatever Kíli knocked over in his confusion. She looked—happy. That trace of loneliness in her leaf green eyes had dimmed somewhat, though it was still there. Bella knew firsthand that it never truly went away, the longing for something forever lost.

Bella had to stop herself from hating them both. She had no illusions as to how petty she was, but it was like a fresh slice across her heart every time she noticed they were gone, and would look up to see them holding hands in the shadow of an arch. They never even kissed, not in front of her, but the sheer excitement and happiness coming off them both made her want to break every dish and cup she could get her hands on. 

As the day wore on and night came upon them, she found herself seated with Tauriel and Kíli at a fire apart from the humans. Bard had intercepted the Master when he spotted them at dinner, and hauled the man off before he could start demanding anything from them in the way of compensation. 

Bella felt Tauriel’s eyes on her cheek, a constant, steady presence that had made her feel like she was standing in a beam of light. Normally, she would appreciate the feeling, but now it made her feel exposed, as if she’d become some creature of darkness who could not bear the sun. _The irony._ “I’m going back to Rivendell,” she announced when she could no longer stand the silence. 

Kíli froze, his raised spoon forgotten in midair. “What—now?”

“In the morning.”

A small, mealy piece of rabbit fell onto his lap as he stared. “Not the Shire?”

She shook her head. The Shire felt like another world, from another life. The Bella Baggins who had left that gentle, green place was a stranger to her now. Maybe, in time, she could return, but it would feel too much like trading one cage for another. She couldn’t bear the thought of stepping foot into her mother’s home and spoiling it with the dark tangles growing around her heart. 

“So soon?” Tauriel asked, looking once at Kíli. Bella guessed that he had told her everything, from the way the elf had followed her all day with sad, searching eyes. “Would you not consider staying in Dale a few days more? Perhaps you—”

“No,” Bella said sharply, staring into their small fire, trying not to see the concern flickering across both their faces. “I’m leaving tomorrow. Bard said he could spare me some clothes and food. I can scavenge for the rest.”

With a pang, she realized that all of her belongings still sat inside Thorin’s room. Her sword, her dresses, her traveling kit. The only thing she’d taken with her was her father’s knife. It still sat in her pocket, slowly tarnishing with Thorin’s blood. 

“And you’re just going to walk back to Rivendell on your own, are you?” Kíli asked with the air of someone readying himself for an argument.

“I don’t have the coin to hire a guard.”

“Lucky for you, I come very cheap.” He smiled pointedly. “Also, I have sworn to my brother that I would not let you come to any harm.”

“Kíli—”

“I’m not letting you go alone, Bella.” He held her gaze, his brown eyes growing hard. “Even if you sneak off in the night, I’m going to track you down. Your bird friend seems to agree with me, in any case.”

She’d seen her thrush flying overhead from time to time over the afternoon. It had never landed, but she felt its gaze. Had it decided she was unworthy, to keep such distance between them? Is that how this damn magic worked?

_Witch_ , a voice whispered into the back of her mind, Thorin’s voice twining with Smaug’s to blow cold smoke into her thoughts. 

“Do you even know the way, Bella?” Tauriel asked, her low voice smooth and calm. “Or you are planning on taking the same path you traveled before?”

She scowled. That’s exactly what she’d been planning. It was dangerous, but she had her ring. She’d be able to get out of most trouble if she simply kept it on. She ignored the fact that it had fallen off last night in favor of its presence now—warm and secure in her pocket. She just needed to be more careful.

“I might remind you that Thranduil has closed his realm to outsiders,” Tauriel murmured. “The paths of the Greenwood will only be more treacherous. When I left, orcs and spiders and all manner of foul creature was growing bold. I fear it has only grown worse in my absence. You followed us before. How do you intend to navigate the forest without a guide?”

Bella stared. She wasn’t seriously suggesting… “You were banished.”

“I’ve received word from my prince. News of the dragon’s defeat has spread, and he has persuaded Thranduil to send aid to these people. My king also asks to speak to me. It seems he has changed his mind about my sentence, in light of recent events.”

At Bella’s frown, Kíli said, “Orcs have been roaming the wood and the southern plains, in numbers never seen in these parts before. Something’s coming, Bella. Something that even that ass—” He caught himself and glanced apologetically at Tauriel, who only seemed besottedly amused. “The point is, even with your _skills_ ,” he looked pointedly at her pocket, where her hand was clutched around her ring, “getting back to Rivendell will be dangerous.”

“I can’t exactly use my _skills_ with you two around, can I?”

“No, you can’t,” he leaned back and smiled at her, “which means that when I go off after you, I will be in even worse danger without you there to save me from certain death.”

“Let us help you, Bella,” Tauriel murmured. “No one should be alone right now.”

Bella couldn’t find the strength to argue, and so she merely nodded and let them plan out their departure the following morning. Sometime later, after the fire had died and the city had fallen into a restless sleep, she huddled under a spare blanket, still wearing Kíli’s coat over her own, and took out the ring. In the moonlight, it gleamed golden and soft. She ran the pad of her finger around its graceful curve, and let her mind sink into the action. She let the whispered conversations around her fade, the distant sounds of guards calling to one another, of people trying to find sleep in their new ruin of a home, fading to a dull murmur. 

Tauriel’s words washed over her like the tide, until there was nothing left but a single, unbreakable truth. She _was_ alone. Even with Kíli stubbornly protecting her, and Tauriel’s soft, steady gaze, she was alone. 

_Not truly alone_ , a voice whispered in the back of her mind, a part which seemed to catch in the shine of her ring. It was that voice which filled her dreams as she slept fitfully, shaken awake more than once by dragon fire and an endless, black void. It was that voice which pulled at her while she bid her goodbyes to Bard and his children, and swept one last look over the people whose homes she had burned into ashes. The ghosts of their dead seemed to cling to her, wrapping around Kíli’s cloak but offering no protection from the growing chill in her heart. 

_Alone and not alone_ , she mused, hanging back a bit as Kíli and Tauriel walked ahead, talking together in soft, quiet voices. Talking of love, and life, and things which seemed to Bella to be sweet lies. Her ring echoed her sentiment, and she felt her face drawn tight, her back hunched against their affection blossoming in front of her. Perhaps it was best that she was alone. Better a simple truth than a facade. What had love brought her, really, but pain and misery? 

As she walked away from Erebor, the fight with Thorin repeating in her mind over and over, a marching hymn to accompany her weary feet, she decided. Better never to have loved at all, than to have loved, and been crucified for it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys are so amazing. The reception to the last chapter blew me away. I love you all so fucking much <3<3<3


	39. Set Me Free

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Love You Any Less" by Rag'n'Bone Man](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkVS_o10T80&index=38&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-)

In the silence of his kingdom, he could feel the beating heart of the earth. 

He had not noticed it before, so preoccupied he had been with—he could not remember. 

Whatever it was must not have mattered much to him, to forget it so easily. Drawn down into the endless embrace of the Arkenstone, he found he cared not at all for the trivial matters which had so filled his mind. The stone sang around him, and he was part of it. The Heart beat in his hands when he let golden drops of coin trickle through them, when he gazed into the depths of blood-red rubies so fine he could have pressed them to his lips and drank deep of cherry wine. He felt it in the diamond stars set into his throne and crown, in the strings of shimmering mithril he wore like a cloak of softest velvet. All were gifts granted to him by Mahal, and he cherished them, the purest creations of his Maker. And the Arkenstone…

Such secrets it whispered to him. Secrets of the old world and the darkness under the earth. Of the true meaning of power. It did not grant him the ability to rule fairly, or to protect his people, as he once thought it might. No, for people were fleeting. Kingdoms rose and fell, but the stone was eternal. The ground never failed, never fled. The earth was not fickle, not like the shadows which sometimes played in his mind. 

Shadows of anger and fear, of a bright, piercing pain—pain, and something else, something whose word eluded him when he cast his mind up to the surface. These shadows had left him so easily. They had tricked him, of course they had. They had hidden the Arkenstone from him, this font of power and certainty. Power was ownership. Power was a claiming. Control. He could control the earth and the stone and the gold of his halls. It was his, all his. And he was content never to be parted from it. He could not control those shadows, and so he was well rid of them.

Sometimes he would see people pass before his eyes, dwarrows with faces which stirred some long-buried thread of affection within his breast. There were a few who pulled more strongly—a younger face with a fair golden head of hair, the face of a brother inked with a soldier’s helm, an old man bearing a halo of snow and far-reaching grey eyes. Others came too. 

Some, he thought, should have come, and did not. They had left him. 

From his throne, he saw the shadows approach, but they did not offer supplication. They stood, and watched. They spoke, but he would not entertain their insults. He was the King Under the Mountain. He had no equal, save the king of all jewels, his Heart of all hearts. The Arkenstone. 

But there was something wrong. He felt it, whenever he stared upon its luminescent surface. The earth and the darkness were cool, comforting, but the stone… 

A memory of fire and anger flashed inside him when he stumbled in his reverence. 

Black eyes. Burning eyes. Heat. A sun, radiant beneath the soft flesh of a small, sharp woman—a halfling.

It passed. It always passed in the end, and the flashes grew weaker and weaker the deeper he sank. He marked this as a triumph, for anything which might intrude upon the Arkenstone’s overwhelming presence was unwanted. 

He struggled to forget his anger, however. He had been so angry, always so, so angry. Before he had found peace in the Arkenstone, he had screamed with it. For years and years, it had been his companion, his lover, taking his heart and hardening it into a lump of smoking coal. He had grown so tired of anger, and in the Arkenstone he had finally found peace. 

But that wasn’t right either. 

There had been other things—he struggled to remember the words. Happiness. Hope. Grief. Fear. Love. They had all been his. Had he wanted them? In his state of serene emptiness, he could not imagine why he would. They were messy things, fleeting. Like the shadows who came and begged him to remember, to come back…

Come back…

_You have lost yourself, Thorin._

Thorin. Thorin. Thorin. 

This name disturbed him. It spoke of failure and weakness. It echoed with loss. He did not want it, and yet these shadows threw it at his feet in challenge, as if he should thank them for something so abhorrent. Something so broken. 

He was not broken within the Arkenstone. He was whole. He was one. 

And yet…

One shadow seemed to pull at him more keenly, and it was this one he hated the most. For the eyes. He knew those eyes. They belonged to that broken man whose only legacy was his failure. Too young. Too blue. Too open. Too angry. They cut him, and he hated them. And this hatred disturbed his eternal contemplation. 

This shadow came to him more than the others. Every day, some small part of him who still accounted for his body of flesh, who still ate and drank and felt outside of the stone, told him it was every day that this shadow came and stood before him. Sometimes it shouted. Sometimes it wept. Sometimes it simply spoke, in a voice layered with determination. It spoke of mundane things, of a life which rang familiar to his ears, though he could not say why. He tried, how he tried to ignore it, but still it came, and so he listened. 

It spoke of teaching, and a home far away which had been lacking—a home smelling of salt-sea and sweet western air. Of blue mountains which turned purple in the twilight. It spoke of a people he had once treasured so highly, but which now seemed like the concerns of another man, in another life. It spun tales of children raised by a broken family, fed on dreams and memories when times grew lean. Who knew the road as much as they did the small, foreign halls of this sea-side kingdom in the west. It spoke of a brother, and this, he felt most keenly. For its brother was gone. He remembered fury and fear, shouting—a banishment, though he could not say why he shied from this memory. It burrowed into him with shame and horror. The shadow seemed most upset when it spoke of this missing brother, and it was these times he felt its wrath most keenly.

More often than not, however, it spoke of things which seemed to register as passing trifles to the mind still listening to its words. 

“You told me I was being foolish,” it said in such a time, pacing before him with crossed arms and hard eyes. “That I had to go back to mother and apologize for scaring her. But the hunting trip had been your idea in the first place, it wasn’t my fault you weren’t around to see Kíli and I off. Mother should have scolded you in front of all your friends, not me. I was so angry with you. I remember vowing that night never to speak to you again. I sat in my room and I thought about throwing your _shuktafh_ into the copper mines because I hated you so much. But just before I went to sleep, you visited me. I told you to go away. In fact I’m pretty sure I called you something which you later boxed my ears for, but you didn’t leave. You sat outside my door singing your stupid nursery rhyme until I finally let you in. That was the first night you told me about Frerin. How it was my responsibility to keep my younger brother safe, how you had failed in that mandate from Mahal, and you would never forgive yourself. You told me of brother-bonds, of _akrâgkharm_ and _bassunadad_ and how at the end of our lives we would go to Mahal either clear in our conscience or burdened by our failures, and that my first and most sacred duty as a brother was to protect Kíli and make sure I didn’t drag him into unnecessary danger.”

The shadow paused, shaking its head. He watched it turn to him with a kind of foreboding—how he hated those eyes, those eyes which seemed to have belonged to him, to the person he had been, a very long time ago. 

“You’ve been so obsessed with failing, my whole life. I didn’t understand it. You were everything to me. You were the father I never had, the older brother who looked after me, the man I have been trying to be for so long. It was inconceivable. You couldn’t fail, _irakadad_.”

Something inside him shifted, and the serenity around him cracked. 

Uncle. 

He should have known what that meant. 

“And maybe that was my fault for thinking you something out of legend, a hero of extraordinary might and will. We all did. Every single one of us thought you could never fail. But you did,” the shadow continued, its voice wavering, moisture swimming in those hated eyes, “and you’ve let it destroy you. You’ve let it erase everything else that was good and strong and noble about you. I know it’s easier to fail once and never try than to fail and keep going. It’s easy to forget. But I won’t let you. Damn you, _irakadad_ , I will not let you forget, because you owe me more than that. You owe Kíli and Bella _more_ than that.”

Another crack. Heat rose up inside him, rearing its head like a great, slumbering wyrm. No. He lived with the stone now. The Arkenstone was his eternity, the mountain, his mistress, his gold and jewels, his family and friends.

“Get out,” he managed, his voice cracking from disuse. 

“Fine.” The shadow took a step toward him, and features formed on its face beyond those blue eyes. Fair hair, a proud nose, a furrowed brow which seemed older than he remembered, harder. “But I will come back tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, until one of us is dead. I have over a century on you, old man, and I have no intention of leaving until you break the hold that stone has over you. You think I don’t feel it? I am a son of Durin too. I feel the pull, and I know what it must be like for you. I can see what it will do to me when it finally claims you too, like your grandfather, and I am afraid, _irakadad_.”

“Out,” he roared, rising from his throne. “I said _out._ ” He could not listen to this shadow talk of fear. It stung too sharply. It burned too brightly. Its fear was not his to take. He had no fear, not anymore. 

“I am afraid of what will happen when you _die_ and leave me to take that cursed thing into my own heart. I am afraid that I’m not as strong as you. If _you_ don’t overcome this, what hope have I?” 

It was shouting now, moisture collecting in the yellow beard on its chin, glistening off a bead—a bead he remembered shaping himself. Delicately, carving the runes when the steel was still pliable and soft. _Shuktafh._

“I followed you halfway across the world because I trusted you. I left my home for _you. You_ , who were my hero, and my protector. You still are. You’ll always be, but not if you let that thing unmake you.”

He seized the closest thing he could find, a heavy golden goblet, inlaid with emeralds and sapphires, shining sweetly in the dim light of a candle. In its fine, polished surface, he glimpsed a wraith—skin pale, blue eyes hollow and sunken. Another shadow to torment him?

But as the goblet sailed through the air, missing the shadow who seemed to burn cold with the ferocity of its mother—its mother, her name, _he did not remember her name_ —he realized that the reflection belonged to him. 

Silence wrapped around him, his labored breathing loud in the cavernous space of his— _not his, his grandfather’s_ —throne room. But it was no longer welcome, or peaceful. 

It was suffocating. 

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” the shadow murmured, and the immediate relief he felt at its voice, the longing, cracked another piece of his calm. “Eat something, please.”

He watched the shadow leave, struggling with the effort of feeling… _something_. The veneer of his peace was breaking, splintering. His mind scrambled for order, but it would not come. He turned to his mountains of treasure for solace, but they burned his eyes. Heat roared to life around him—fire, dragon fire, melting everything it touched. The gold ran into smoking rivers, the rubies turned bloody, his sapphires froze and cracked into a thousand fragments of shattered glass. He lunged for his throne, but it too seared his skin. He looked up, hoping for some sign from the Arkenstone, his Arkenstone.

But its moonshine glow had turned wan. It leered at him where it sat at the head of his throne, stirring a chill inside his heart which only made the dragon fire burn hotter. Panic surged up his throat. He scrambled for the Arkenstone, dug his fingers into the grooves to tear it out, to bury it into his own chest, anything to stop the pain. If only he might hold it again, perhaps it would remember him. It could never have forgotten him.

_Like you forgot your nephew?_

The voice slammed into his chest with a ferocious anger. It was familiar, so familiar. But he would not think its name. He would not give it power. The power of the mountain was his and he had no more need of that name, that cursed name. That feeble, failed name.

_You have forgotten them all. Coward. There was a time you would have taken a sword through your heart for each and every one of them. They were_ yours _and you threw them aside for a shiny rock._

He clapped hands over his ears to drown out the voice, screaming into him with urgency and frustration, with desperation. But he could do nothing but listen, for it was his voice. After so long shoved deep into the cobwebs of his mind, it was angry, and it was fighting. 

_You are more than this curse. You are more than this stone. You are more, Thorin Oakenshield._

The room quaked with laughter. _OAKENSHIELD_ , the voice of Azog and Smaug rang in unison around him. The floor warped and threw him sideways, the crown falling from his head along with the cloak of mithril and the scepter of diamond in his hand. It all fell from him as he tumbled. The gold rained down upon him like a swelling wave, drowning him, dragging him under. He cowered and shook as the voice continued to shout, growing and changing into the voices of people whom he had once loved—whom he still loved. 

Love. 

The feeling tore at him, laid him bare. He screamed at the sudden intensity raging in his chest. He craned his neck, searching for the Arkenstone. Why had it abandoned him? 

_It is a stone, you fool. Nothing more than a trinket. An heirloom. A curse._

No. It couldn’t be. 

He rose to his feet, shaking, drenched in cold sweat, chest heaving for breath. Something pulsed under his skin like poison, and he wished it were gone. He wanted it gone. He wanted—

The stone winked at him, and it was no longer the soft blue-purple glow of starlight and cloudust. It was an eye, slitted in yellow, rimmed in the blood of his people, his _people_. 

_I would have loved to see it drive you mad, little king._ Smaug leered at him from his throne—not _his_ throne. His mind strained under the pressure of sounds and sensations he had not heard or felt in days. 

“ _No_ ,” he growled, and the stone, the eye, laughed at him. 

It came free from its setting at last. For a moment, it was calm once more. The sounds faded, and he was left with a peace in his heart. 

But after the riot and rage, after the shadow’s words had pulsed in his chest, he knew this false peace for what it was. Emptiness. Silence. It was nothing. And he was nothing with it.

In this emptiness he saw another image, one he had tried so hard to forget—small, lovingly callused hands, holding the stone out to him with trembling fingers. 

The Arkenstone fell from his hands and clattered across the floor. His heart beat wildly in his chest. Sensation ripped through him and he struggled for breath. His skin was clammy and wet, with a fever chill which left him aching. He was weak, so weak. When had he last eaten? His fingers trembled as he pushed himself upright. He wore a fine doublet, stitched in velvet and lined with rich white fur. He recognized it at once as belonging to his dead grandfather. When had he put it on? Where had he found it?

The velvet doublet came off with a tear, along with the sash of silver silk. Bracers of pounded gold fell to the floor along with rings, so many rings, at least three on each finger. He ripped chains of glittering onyx and amethyst from his neck, threw a belt inlaid with a rainbow of gems into one of the piles of gold—gold which now seemed to loom so high over his head, he could not imagine how one person might even conceive of spending so much in a single lifetime.

Piece by piece, the rich armor he had dragged out from the mounds of treasure sloughed off him like dead skin. As if he were leeching poison from his veins. The burden on his shoulders lessened, and the pressure around his heart released. He could breathe, though each breath was labored. He could see, though his eyes strained as if from disuse. The ragged sounds of his own gasping voice filled the chamber which had once been witness to the slow turning of his grandfather from a respected man of humility and wisdom to a raving lunatic more attached to his gold than to his family. 

_How_ had he let this happen? 

Before his mind could process the change, before he could recall the steps he had taken to get to this place of darkness, to see how far down the hole he had dug for himself truly went, his eyes fell once more on the Arkenstone. 

He felt it clawing for him, beckoning him in. It was a sweet, chilling song now, not the gentle lullaby which had drawn him down in a slow spiral. He heard its false charms and felt it working upon his fractured will. 

But he knew it for what it was now. Now, he remembered.

He picked up his grandfather’s robe and threw it over the stone, tearing his eyes away from the beautiful sight. It still called so lovingly to him, glittering at the edge of his vision, reaching insidious tendrils up out of the fabric to wrap around his hands and worm its way back into his heart. His feet moved without prompting, stumbling forward and out of the treasure chamber. He did not stop. The path unfurled before him like an old friend guiding him past hallways he knew, rooms he had once played in as a child. He walked without pause, ignoring his Company when they turned startled eyes to him, when they called out in alarm. None tried to bar his way, however, and for that he was infinitely grateful—one more thing to add to the list of grievances he would spend the rest of his sorry life making right. 

The small forge was just where he remembered it to be—three doors past the entry with its gilded marble floors and fine, rune-carved pillars, past the upper servant’s quarters, just to the right of his favored practice arena as a boy. The walls were charred and the smooth marble chipped and covered in centuries of dust, but what he sought was just where he had left it—abandoned and seemingly forgotten.

The rust-hinged door cracked open with a whine that sent tremors through his heaving chest. The forge had been ransacked, no doubt in a last attempt to find weapons for those who hadn’t been able to flee at Smaug’s arrival. But there was still an anvil, covered in cobwebs and the bones of what must have once been a small child. More bones littered the floor, draped in rags and moldy strips of leather. His mind saw them, registered them with horror and grief, but he kept moving. He could not stop, not when the Arkenstone was calling him, calling him— _home_ , it whispered in a sweet, echoing voice. In his warped mania, it sounded like _her_. Like his heart, like—

“Not _yet_ ,” he gritted through clenched teeth. He could not falter now. Not after he had clawedup from the empty hole which had been his prison for—how long? How long had it been?

He did his best to remove the bones from the anvil, to set them down gently, but they cracked and dissolved in his hands. Tears streamed down his cheeks. The bones of his people littered the floor of a place which had once been his refuge, the first place he had ever taken hammer to metal and found peace amidst all that noise and expectation, but he could not weep. Not yet. A hammer lay on the ground under piles of dust and decay, fine and firm even after so many years buried. Its grip was familiar. As his fingers curled and found its shape once more, the echoing madness inside him dimmed into just another foe, another battle, another beast to kill—one more obstacle to master to protect his home, his family, himself.

The Arkenstone blazed bright when he uncovered it from its velvet cage. Its silver-white light cut through him, and for just a moment, he forgot himself. He was silent again. Still. 

“ _Irakadad._ ”

The voice came from somewhere behind his shoulder, and it was enough. 

He drew his grandfather’s robe back, revealing the full brilliance of the Heart of the Mountain. In a moment of clarity, he realized what he was about to do. He felt the full weight of his ancestors upon him, every dwarf who had toiled for this kingdom, every parent who had given over their lives and their children’s lives, every one of those displaced children who had wandered far without anyone to guide them. 

Would they judge him? 

_They should_ , came the answer. _For the role of a king is not to rule over his people, but to walk alongside them, and be theirs._

He didn’t know if he spoke the words or if it was truly he who thought them. In the corner of his eye, he saw a figure, massive, broad-shouldered, silent—watching. He thought it to be the ghost of his people. Of Erebor. 

The mountain was in this forge with him, and it was waiting. 

He tightened his grip around the hammer, set the jewel down into the old brace. He stared into the deep center of the Arkenstone, with a heart broken in twain, and swung. With a strength he had almost forgotten he possessed, he brought the hammer down atop the glittering jewel. 

The Arkenstone split with a resounding crack. Silver dust like moonlight scattered across the anvil. Shards flew into the piles of huddled dead, lost to an older, hungrier cloud of dust. The large jewel lay sundered before him, and he knew a moment of doubt.

But still that figure watched him, and waited. 

He felt his anger rise in place of horror. The hammer came down again, smashing into the broken pieces, pulverizing the shards into more fine-grained sand. Into each stroke, he poured his anger and fear, his misery and loss. He poured every hated piece of himself he could find into the breaking of the stone, reforging his failure into the shape he now hit with the strength of his fury. Again, and again, he slammed his hammer into the Arkenstone, into the thing he had thought was his heart, until finally there was only dust. 

The hammer fell from his suddenly lax grip. He stared down at all he had wrought, the dust of bone and jewel settling over the remains of his people, people who had died in fear as the dragon raged in the rooms beyond. 

And he finally broke. 

His knees buckled, his head fell into his hands, and the tears poured freely. A scream tore from his lips as the last throws of his rage died out. He felt raw, ragged, full of self-loathing and regret. Pain, so much pain he might remake himself in its image and still be gathering up its excess for centuries to come, but he _felt_. 

And in that feeling, he remembered who he was. 

“What have I done?” Thorin whispered, his voice stirring a bit of powder from the backs of his sunken hands. 

“You beat it, lad.”

He stilled at Balin’s voice. Clear and firm, without the veil of the Arkenstone’s influence. How long had it been since he had heard his old friend’s voice?

Thorin lifted his head to see the anvil covered with silver-white dust. 

He had broken the Arkenstone.

The truth hit him so hard he rocked back on his heels. He might have fallen if not for a strong grip on his back, pulling him into a hard, shaking embrace. He smelled Dwalin before he saw him, that mixture of old leather and ale, of herbs he burned at night when he thought no one was watching, to ward off mischief. Thorin breathed his _akrâgkharm_ in, drawing what strength he could from those inked hands he knew nearly as well as his own, after so many years walking side by side. If it was weakness to lean on him now, then so be it. What strength he had managed to salvage from his madness had gone into the breaking of the Arkenstone.

“You fucking bastard,” Dwalin growled low into his ear. “I thought you were gone for good, you raving, idiotic—” A furious sob broke through his words, and he only hugged Thorin more fiercely. 

Over Dwalin’s massive shoulder, he saw Balin standing in the doorway, Glóin and Óin just behind, followed by Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, and Ori, Nori, and Dori. All of them watched him with guarded, slowly growing joy and sorrow. As if they couldn’t yet accept that he had returned to them. 

Balin was shaking his head, a pained smile on his lips and tears shining in his eyes. “Well, that was one way to do it, I suppose. But I won’t be the one to tell your sister you smashed the most valuable jewel in dwarven history to get out of a temper tantrum.”

The pain rocked through him. Dís. _Dís_. His _kurkarukê_. 

He had forgotten his own sister. 

It came back to him in fits and spurts, like the last bit of water trickling through a broken dam. He could not recall how long he had been wasting away inside his treasure room, but from the weakness in his limbs, the aching, gnawing hunger in his belly, it must have been a long time. 

“How long?” he croaked. 

Dwalin held him at arm’s length, his fierce eyes rimmed in moisture. He kept his lips tight, studying him closely, as if he couldn’t truly believe Thorin was free. 

“A fortnight.”

Thorin stilled at the sound of that voice. Small, contained, nothing like the last words thrown at him in anger and despair. 

The Company parted to reveal Fíli standing behind the rest, arms crossed and face purposefully expressionless. The only sign that he felt anything was the whites of his knuckles, the intensity of his gaze. 

Thorin wanted to rise, to embrace his nephew, his savior, but the boy’s expression didn’t soften. 

“It felt like an age,” he managed, shifting to his feet and allowing Dwalin to help him stand. “I—” He swallowed the ragged lump in his throat, keenly aware of every dwarf’s gaze spearing through him, waiting. Just like that figure, still hovering at the edge of his vision, still watching him, and waiting. “I am—so sorry.”

No one spoke, though a few shifted uncomfortably. All of them seemed to realize this was between Thorin and Fíli. 

Fíli did not drop his gaze. He was unmoving and still, and could have been carved from marble, another statue in the halls of his forefathers. “Is your mind clear?”

“It is.”

He nodded sharply, and his broad chest inflated. When had he grown so large in Thorin’s eyes? “Then it’s time to start fixing this mess. Do you remember banishing your betrothed and nephew?”

The words cracked into him like a punch to his gut. They were spoken without mercy, without pity, only cold efficiency. 

“Lad,” Dwalin started, his grip tightening over Thorin’s shoulders.

“I do,” Thorin said at once, trying to ignore the riot of shame threatening to overwhelm him. 

Banished. He had banished Kíli and Bella. He remembered now—his voice raised in wrath and derision, pronouncing that anyone who helped the witch would never again be allowed inside the halls of his kingdom. So quickly he had succumbed, with the Arkenstone clutched in his grasp at last. All thought of kin or _âzyungel_ had fled in its influence. 

Its loss throbbed in him, as if he had truly smashed his own heart along with that of the mountain’s. 

“I remember,” he forced himself to say, to meet Fíli’s eyes and hold them. He owed his nephew that, and so, so much more. “I revoke it. In the eyes of my brethren and comrades, I revoke any banishment laid upon the heads of Kíli, son of Volo, and Bella Baggins.” His voice caught on their names, his soul stumbling in the face of what he had done. 

_Mahal, what have I done?_

Something in Fíli’s expression shifted, and Thorin lunged for it. “I was not in my right mind.”

Fíli’s mouth hardened. “Obviously. Let’s just hope you’ve not recovered too late.” Without another look, he turned on his heel and walked into the darkness of the hall behind him. 

Thorin blinked more tears from his eyes. He could not hope for so much. Not anymore. 

“He’ll come round,” Balin murmured, shooing the rest of the Company out. “What say we get you some fresh air and food. You’re thin enough to pass for a human.”

The words were meant to comfort, but they only reminded him of Lake-town, of the destruction he had thought so little of. It all washed over him, the reality of what he had shoved aside in his manic quest for the Arkenstone, and his madness after. 

“Too late,” he muttered, shaking his head, as if he might clear it of water. “Too late for what?”

Balin shared a dark look with his brother, and said in a plain, stark voice, “We don’t know. That’s the trouble. It’ll be easier to talk through with a full stomach.”

Thorin felt the unspoken truth hang heavy in his mind, but he was too tired to press for more. He needed to sleep, and to rest, and to find his wits once more, but any time spent recovering was time not spent making amends. 

He stared at the doorway, shadowed in the one flickering candle one of his Company had brought to light the small forge. He hadn’t even realized the chamber was that dark. 

Too late. Too late for him? Or too late for them all?

“Budge up.” Dwalin nudged him, too gently. “No use standing here feeling sorry for yourself.”

Thorin’s eyes closed for one moment—in relief, in acknowledgement. He was tired, and part of him didn’t want to rise and face whatever waited for him in the hall beyond.

“It won’t get any easier the longer you wait, Thorin,” Balin murmured, with a trace of sympathy. “Time to face the world.”

Thorin nodded and let them lead him back into the main hall. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought about ending this part of the fic before Thorin beat the dragon-sickness, but I just couldn't do that to you guys. So here's a little bit of hope before the storm.
> 
> I'll add a longer note to the last chapter, but I will remind everyone that this is not the end of Bella and Thorin's story! I plan on writing a sequel at some point to give them an ending they deserve. <3


	40. Takes Its Toll

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Flesh & Bones" by The Sweeplings](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHLU8y-J5DE&list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-&index=40)

The journey through Mirkwood was, somehow, even worse the second time around. 

Bella did not have the concern over her dwarves to urge her on, nor did she have the constant presence of the ring to numb her to the forest’s corruption, for traveling unseen was a luxury which had been taken from her. Neither did she have the benefit of sitting in her torment alone, able to express herself freely without drawing concerned looks from her well-meaning companions, which was almost as bad as them openly leering. 

Kíli and Tauriel did their best to treat her normally, but she knew better. She felt their stares when they thought she was busy cleaning her dishes or poking life into the fire. She heard their whispers. They thought she was weak, or going mad. The latter was almost laughable. How many people had to think her something before she became it? Maybe she should just start raving and roaring to give them the satisfaction. 

It was thoughts like these which troubled her when she pulled herself back out of her sullenness and ill temper. This paranoia was unlike her. It was petty and cruel, and yet it made sense, didn’t it? She had been through so much the past few months, the past few decades, really. Wasn’t she owed a little madness, every now and then? And it wasn’t truly madness, not when it was founded in fact. Kíli and Tauriel _were_ worried about her. They weren’t trying to hide it. Why on earth should she pretend that she didn’t feel their concern, or worse, that she somehow wanted it?

Three weeks they spent trudging back through Mirkwood, hiding from elvish patrols and spiders alike. Bella drew more and more into herself as they went, choosing silence over drudging up some attempts at conversation. Her world had grown poisoned barbs and tangled vines. It was another lie to pretend otherwise. Another lie, to add to her growing collection. Her only solace she found at night, curled over her ring and trying not to listen to Kíli and Tauriel’s gentle murmuring. Even if they weren’t discussing her frailty and failures, they were talking about things which were almost worse. 

Burgeoning love. It was sickening to watch. She had never been miserly before about seeing others indulge in such weakness, but after… 

After—Thorin, she hated the very idea of it. He had ripped her apart her with honeyed words and weighty promises, of long looks and fierce passion and softness, such sad, lovely softness where there should have only been careful distance. He should have been a sour, angry king. He should have been indifferent to her. She should have thought nothing more of him than she would a rude goat. 

And yet he swam in her thoughts, just as often sweet and smirking as he was shouting and strangling her, holding her over a black, flaming pit. Laughing and screaming in equal measure with eyes winking bright like the stone he’d chosen over her. _Insignificant witch_ , he called her again and again. _Mad little halfling_. 

Perhaps she was mad. She had thought herself in love, and that was its own kind of madness. 

She had seen what love did to her mother, and she wasn’t have as brave, or smart, or strong as the great and wonderful Belladonna Took. She had been mad to think herself otherwise.

So she kept silent, and spoke only when spoken to. She was done giving the world more than its due. It had already taken so much. She had to keep what was left to her, to guard the broken pieces of her heart, to clutch her warm, simple ring, to herself, and herself alone. 

They passed through Mirkwood unmolested, thanks only to Tauriel’s aid. Apart from three day’s rest in which the elf had visited her king and in which Kíli and Bella had hidden in a secreted grove, they had kept a steady, but slow pace. Kíli was having trouble keeping up, though he never mentioned his leg hurting him. Tauriel made no mention either, though she did rather obviously offer him use of her poultices for pain. She even helped him apply them, sometimes, both of them blushing like fumbling newborns. 

Bella refused to say that her own shoulder hurt as well. She didn’t want more of their pity, or their help. Never mind that Kíli would be dead if she hadn’t thought to run for Tauriel’s aid. Like she never would have been injured if she hadn’t taken that arrow for Fíli, or been in danger in the first place if Thorin hadn’t—

“Stop that,” she chastised herself, picking her way over roots and dead leaves, the piles of moss and fungi almost coming up to her knees and smelling of cloying, wet rot. “That doesn’t help anything.”

“You say something, Bella?” Kíli said over his shoulder, looking back with a smile which seemed to her to be far brighter than their situation warranted. 

She’d spoken aloud without realizing. Again. “No, nothing.” She ignored the look passed over her head, to Tauriel where she had chosen to walk in the rear today. 

“If you’re feeling tired,” the elf said gently, “we can—”

“Did I say I was feeling tired?” Bella snapped, hand clenching over her ring where it always sat, safe and sound, in her pocket. 

The silence that greeted her was almost worse than a confrontation. _That was uncalled for,_ she told herself, hating the shame that knocked at her hollow chest. 

She could feel herself souring, her mind falling into that of someone petty and sharp, but she couldn’t help it. The frayed edges of her heart were hard enough to hold together as it was. She couldn’t keep hold on her temper as well. 

Her mother had once given her a doll to teach her how to sew when she was still young and willing to try. Her fingers had threaded countless needles, pricking themselves and spotting blood over the clean linen and stuffing. Bella had hunched over that doll for hours, trying in vain to stitch up the sides of her doll’s pretty green dress, to hold in the soft spun-straw hair which had been threaded into its head. No matter how hard she tried, she could never manage to keep it together. Bits of cloudy down had drifted in spurts over her knees, collecting in her sweaty palms, until she had finally thrown it to the floor in frustration. She had not cried, but her eyes had burned with shame and frustration. Her childhood self had not come upon anything she could not master, not the apple trees out past the cabbage farms and sheep pastures, nor the ducks who came to her when she sang and ate from her hands by the large, slow-running river behind her Aunt Donnamira’s smial on the edge of Green Hill Country. 

Bella saw that doll again now, as they reached the edge of Mirkwood and stepped into clean, fresh air for the first time in weeks. She saw it spread out across the rug in front of her fireplace in Bag End, its insides bursting from messy seams, dried blood gathered on the intricate flowers made by finer, defter hands. She felt shame burn her cheeks. Her feet longed to burst off into the unknown by herself, to swallow her frustration and rebuild her fragile ego out of sight, and out of mind.

Holding herself together had always been her most important skill, and now she was unraveling. Seven months away from home, and all her careful work had burst apart in her clumsy, indelicate hands. 

As Kíli crowed a triumphant cry at being rid of the forest, and Tauriel smiled at him with eyes full of love, Bella felt nothing but grim satisfaction that she was that much further from Erebor. 

It wasn’t relief, or growing closure. It just was. She had a feeling that her life was done with such easy emotions as relief now. And closure was something best saved for those who could move on. She couldn’t even summon enough ego to think that she might, one day. She had lost something of herself. Some of her stuffing had burst free from her seams atop that dark, crowded rampart, and no matter how much she might want to replace it, she hadn’t the skill, or the desire. Not anymore. 

They made camp for the day, the simple process of unrolling her pallet and setting aside her pack costing her more than it should. She struggled to stay awake during their meager dinner. She tried to conjure a smile for Kíli’s forced enthusiasm and Tauriel’s awkward attempts at conversation. Sitting with these two bright, innocent people, Bella felt like an unwanted weed, growing up amongst sunshine yellow daffodils, throwing her noxious fumes into the air as slowly she rotted into oblivion. 

She curled up to sleep early, after having only a few bites of Tauriel’s bland stew. The sounds of their hushed conversation seemed to claw at her, and she shut her eyes against the gentle laughs, the whispers, insults every one. 

_Pull it together, Bright Eyes,_ she told herself, hunching over her ring and tugging her thin, damp blanket up over her shoulders and ears. A shiver went through her body, and she gritted her teeth. _Sleep, and face tomorrow with a fresh demeanor._

But her sleep was tormented, as it had been ever since she’d stepped foot inside Erebor. She sat at the bottom of an endless cave, all the light sucked up into one single, solitary shaft. No matter how far she crawled on jagged, cold rocks which cut like broken plates, she couldn’t reach it. It moved before her, just close enough to want with every fiber of her being, but too far away. 

“I need the light,” she kept mumbling, her breathing growing frantic as eyes, fiery and piercing, winked into existence around her. If she could reach the light, the nightmare would end. 

“What’s this, preciousss?” a wet, bubbling voice broke the silence. 

Her heart leapt into her throat. She dare not turn around. If she didn’t look at the creature, it wouldn’t find her. 

“Smellsss you, don’t we precious? Oh-ho, yes,” it whispered, so close behind her the hair on the back of her neck rose in fear. “Hearsss you. The little _thief_.”

“I’m not a thief,” she whispered, playing out the scene as she had so many times. “Begone, you foul thing.”

“Foul?” it shrieked, the smacking, fish-like sounds of its feet growing nearer and nearer. Its rank breath blew across her face, and Bella shuddered. “Foul, it calls us? Nasty. _Nasty_ , Bagginsesss.”

“How do you know my name?” Bella kept her eyes shut, feeling forward with only her hands. The ring. If she could find the ring, she could disappear, and this nightmare would be over.

“We knowsss everything about you, little Bagginsesss. Tricksy Bagginsesss. Crawled up behind us and stole our birthday present, didn’t it?” Anger crept into its voice, a dark, crawling thing borne of the wet deepness beneath the ground and a madness which went beyond loneliness, beyond craving. Madness as old as the world. “We wants it back, we wants our _preciousss_.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she stammered. But she did. She did know. The ring. Her precious ring. The only good and safe thing left in her life anymore. Everything else had fallen to greed and pain and misery, but the _ring_ …

It was _hers_. And she would not let this creature steal it from her.

“ _Mine_ ,” it howled, sending a wave of dread curling down her spine. 

She crawled faster, hands and knees tearing over the ragged rocks. Where her skin broke it burned and throbbed, but she kept crawling. The shaft of light was forgotten now, as the fiery eyes around her blazed even brighter. Cold fire licked at her skin, searing, scoring. 

“Give it _back_. We wants our _preciousss!”_

Heart pounding in her ears, blood pumping through her veins, she felt something smooth and warm under her bleeding fingers. Relief and rage leapt up into her throat and she cried. Tears of fire poured down her cheeks. Her shoulder ached so fiercely she clawed at it with one hand while she fumbled with the ring in the other. 

_Put it on_.

Yes, she should put the ring on. The ring would numb the fire, the pain. The ring would make it better. 

It slipped over her finger, the perfect size, so like her mother’s wedding ring—but the numbness did not come. Instead, the darkness erupted into brilliant flame. The creature’s wet shrieking grew in pitch, until it ripped through her mind with its ferocity. 

An alien joy rebounded through the vast, writhing flames, and Bella felt something rear back in its black hood, sightless eyes burning as it raced toward her. 

She knew an eye, lidless, surrounded by rippling fire, and she heard a voice, that same voice which had spoken to her through Azog. A voice carrying the malice of a thousand, thousand years. A voice which had sundered the world, and placed chains around its broken corpse. 

_I SEE YOU._

Cold fire rushed into her mouth like a river, choking her, chilling and burning her. She clawed at her own throat, anything to stop the torrent from drowning, and just as she thought she could take no more, just as she thought that perhaps it might be better simply to let the cold fire claim her—it stopped. 

Bella opened her eyes to shouting, though it was not shouting inside her own head, and to fire, though it was not the cold fire which had sought to claim her. The night, normal and oppressive, flickered with the light of a fire, and the screams were her own. 

Firm hands were clasped around her shoulders, shaking her. A voice was saying her name, over and over again, trying to calm her. 

But she could not be calm. Something was coming for her. Something fast, traveling on swift, ensorcelled hooves. 

“—right, Bella,” Kíli said firmly, hauling her upright so she was forced to look into his eyes. “Can you hear me?”

Her screaming stopped abruptly as she regained her bearings. She dragged in a ragged breath and slumped, shaking. A chill sweat had broken out over her temples and chest, running down her back in a slick discomfort. 

“Hey, hey,” Kíli murmured, relief softening his features. “You’re all right. It was just a nightmare.”

“N-no,” she choked, hand clenched over her ring. The metal seemed cold to the touch, even though her blood was burning. “Something’s wrong, Kíli. Something’s coming—”

“Bella, you’re not making—”

“Quiet,” Tauriel murmured, her voice soft, but commanding. The elf had been standing over them both, but now her head was cocked, and her eyes flashed up and over her shoulder. Her body went taut, as still as a bow held in readiness. 

In the space between one breath and the next, Bella heard hoofbeats, pounding hard against the ground, and fast approaching. 

Tauriel bent gracefully, unsheathing her long knives and rolling into a ready stance as soon as the rider burst into the light of their fire. 

Dressed all in black, rising on a steed which looked borne from the night itself, a towering rider bore down on them. Another shriek pierced the air, and this Bella felt in her shoulder, in her heart. It was a shriek of pain, fell and poisoned, and it traveled into the very marrow of her bones.

She flinched back, pushing Kíli off her with what strength she had. 

Kíli cried out in alarm as he fumbled for his bow and quiver. Tauriel’s face flashed with fear, but she moved into a graceful arc, meeting the black rider’s blade just as it swung down at her. 

The blade seemed illuminated by an unearthly glow, and as Bella followed its path, she knew what it was. A Morgul-blade, made of the same black steel which had pierced her shoulder and Kíli’s leg, but darker, more foul. 

The recognition pulsed within her, and she screamed in agony as her shoulder erupted. 

Her mind could not understand it, though her heart did, beating so fast she could barely breathe. Pain gripped her so tight, she thought she might go mad with it. The scene unfolded before her—Kíli, crouching with one hand holding his leg, trying in vain to rise, Tauriel, engaged with the rider and the horse, spinning fast, but not fast enough to hold them back.

As if the rider sensed her fear, it turned to her, and though it fought with Tauriel, she could feel its black gaze. 

Terror poured through her veins. The hand clenched around the ring jerked and spasmed. Her fingers seemed to want to pry open, to hold it out—but she fought it. Through the haze of pain and fear, she felt a rage more palpable than anything she had ever felt. It was not hers, it could not be hers, alone. It came from the ring. 

The ring wanted to stay with her. Of course it did. 

She must protect it. 

Her fingers slipped around its cold edge, trying to put it on, to claim it. It was hers. No one else’s. Not this usurper on a black steed. 

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew she was being torn apart. These emotions did not belong to her, but she couldn’t find purchase anymore. She seemed entirely out of control of her own body. 

White light burst through the night, and the rider reared back from Tauriel. 

Another figure, this one draped in grey astride a cream-colored horse, galloped toward the black rider. They clashed, blinding white blade against unearthly black, and Bella saw the rider recoil. In dismay, it tried to get around the rider in grey, to get to her. She felt anger and frustration, a kind of single-minded longing which pulled at her, at the injury in her shoulder, the ring still clutched in her hand. 

As she looked deep into the depths of its hood, she saw fire, and shadow. _Put on the ring._ Oh, how she wanted to. She wanted—but something stopped her. A scream built in her throat, but before it could overwhelm her, the black rider turned and fled. 

Bella stared after it, not understanding. Sound seemed dim and hollow as voices passed over and around her. She sat at the bottom of a deep pool, the reverberations of the world reaching her slowly, and too late. But the pool was not nice and cool. It was burning, and the pain in her shoulder was flowing down her arm and chest out like blood from a wound.

The grey rider filled her vision, and Bella saw, but did not understand. 

“Belladonna Baggins, what do you have clenched in your hand?” the grey figure said in a voice crackling with thunder. 

She blinked, trying to reconcile the events of the past few moments with the pain numbing her to the rest of the world. The voice was familiar. The voice belonged to someone she loved, someone she had longed for only weeks ago, someone…

Gandalf. 

Gandalf? 

She knew him, but she could not put his face—familiar, craggy, lined with smiles and fireworks and sadness—to his name. Gandalf. 

He had other names. Names which were not familiar or beloved. Names which she hated with every fiber of her being. Names which had she had long ago committed to memory, to the list of foes she would vanquish before she saw the world remade. That fool. That—

“How long has she been like this?”

Someone else answered him. An elf. “She awoke screaming only minutes ago,” Tauriel, _Tauriel_ , said, holding—Kíli in her arms as he grimaced against pain. 

Papery hands gripped the sides of her face. “Look at me, Bella.”

She did so against her better judgement. This wizard would see her, he would know. He would _see_.

_Know what?_ she asked herself, battling the conflicting emotions rioting in her heart. _See what?_

“Open your hand.”

_No._ She would not. 

A whine broke from her lips. She tried to lean away, to turn from eyes the color of clouds and the sea, the color of time, and power. A vice held her in place, firm, unwavering—magic, of which she had never felt before. 

Or had she?

“Show me what you have in the palm of your hand.” Again, that voice crackled with promise. It was not a voice the world heard often, and it seemed to shake in its presence. 

Unwillingly, her fingers curled outward to reveal the ring. 

The moment Gandalf looked down, she was released from his spell. She scrambled back, but it had been long enough. He had seen her ring, her lovely, precious ring. And he would take it from her. She would not be parted from it. She would not. It was hers. Her own. Hers only.

She hit something hard, a tree trunk, and the soft knock to the back of her head seemed to jostle something inside her. A force loosed its grip over her heart, and she sagged back, her hand falling open to let the ring roll down onto the ground. Her breath came in short gasps as she felt the cold of the night crowd in on her. Shoulder throbbing, hand pulsing where her nails had dug into the skin of her palm, she shook her head, trying to clear it. 

“Gandalf?” For it was Gandalf, kneeling before her and staring down at the ring with unfathomable eyes. 

Almost reluctantly, he met her gaze, and such a wealth of misery was there that she nearly wept to see it. 

“What happened? What’s—” She broke off as she tried to make sense of it all. She saw the last few minutes, the nightmare and the fight with the black rider, all of it passing before her as if it had happened to someone else. She couldn’t seem to make heads nor tails of it. 

She was tired, and she was cold, and her shoulder hurt just as badly as it had the day after she’d awoken in Rivendell. The feeble light of the fire danced around Gandalf’s lined face, taunting her with its similarity to the fire in her dreams. Slowly, she reached down for the ring, and slipped it back into her pocket. Gandalf watched her closely, judging her every movement with sharp, sad eyes. 

“I have never been so sorry to see you, my dear,” he murmured, his voice regaining its normal warmth, its normal weariness. Over his shoulder, Tauriel and Kíli stared at her in fear. A small, petty thread of anger entered her heart at the sight. Fear her, did they? Weren’t so worried over her now, apparently.

Gandalf’s eye twitched at whatever he saw in her face. He straightened, holding out a hand to help her up. “I suspect there is much you and I need to discuss. Not here, where the servants of the Enemy have found you at last.” Darkness passed over his expression, before he turned to her companions. He eyed Tauriel, his expression pensive. “You hail from the Woodland Realm?”

Tauriel straightened, unease in her eyes. “I do.”

“Gandalf, this is Tauriel. She’s—ah,” Kíli mumbled, seeming to have a hard time looking away from Bella. 

“Much has changed since I took my leave of you only a few months ago,” he murmured, scanning the forest and the fields. 

“Perhaps you shouldn’t have left,” Bella said before she could stop herself. Whether it was the pain in her shoulder or the confusion still swirling through her gut—she was frightened, and angry, and tired, so very tired—her tongue cut too sharp. “Perhaps this is all your fault, you old crow. Perhaps none of us would have been dragged into this mess at all without your interfering—”

“That’s quite enough,” Gandalf said, turning back to her with resignation. There was no anger in his eyes, only regret. “All of us are owed some measure of truth, and I will not take your criticisms now, dear Bella. Not under shadow of threat.”

“Mithrandir,” Tauriel murmured. “You are one of the Ithryn, are you not?”

“Indeed I am,” Gandalf scowled, “but that is the last of idle conversation I will allow for the present. We must flee. Now.”

The bark in his voice stirred Bella’s frustration, but she rose, not feeling much like arguing the point. Her eyes danced across the darkness, heart shying from more fiery eyes or hooded riders. Where had that demon come from?

“Beorn has driven the others away. His cottage will be safe for the night. Whether by luck or by design, you have come out of the forest only a few hours from his home.”

“The others?” Kíli asked with alarm, grimacing as he straightened his leg and limped to get his things together. “Gandalf, that rider—”

“Will return soon, with more of his ilk.” Gandalf turned to his horse, stroking its neck and whispering something into its ear. Bella felt his voice, though she couldn’t hear it, raising gooseflesh over her arms. The horse, fine and majestic, its white hair gleaming dimly in the darkness, sped into the night, leaving only a trace of displacement in the air. “Shadowfax will draw them off, if he can.”

“I don’t understand,” Kíli pressed. “What did it want? How did you find us?”

Even as Gandalf met her gaze, Bella understood, somewhere deep at the core of her being. Her ring seemed to quiver and shake in anticipation, as if it were happy, eager for her to know what it was she carried. What it was she had poured herself into these past weeks. What had been dogging her dreams and filling her mind with petty thorns and cold fire. 

“I did not find you, young Kíli. _It_ did. And if what I suspect is true, it wants nothing to do with you at all.”

“ _Ulairi_ ,” Tauriel murmured, her voice almost shaking. “It was one of the Nine?”

Gandalf kept his eyes on Bella, and his voice seemed to come from far away. “It was. You, my darling hobbit, have drawn the eye of the Nazgûl.”

“Nazgûl?” Kíli practically yelped. “But why…”

In her mind, Bella saw the eye of fire. Her knees almost buckled as the voice of her nightmares whispered again. 

_I’VE FOUND YOU._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that is all for now! <3 I've said this before, but I will leave it here as well: this is not the end of the story. I have a sequel planned (I had initially thought I would finish the whole thing in one, but this grew so large that I needed to take a break), so fear not! I know there's a lot to get through, and I have every intention of giving everyone (mostly) a happy ending. 
> 
> I don't know how long it will be until I come back, as I've got a lot of other things to work on as well, as you probably know if you've looked at my wip list :P I've started a series for this fic, so if you want to be notified of when I start the sequel, go ahead and subscribe [here](http://archiveofourown.org/series/936504), or you can follow me on tumblr (link below) and prod me _gently, please_.
> 
> And here is where I thank all of you for be so incredibly sweet. This fic was such a lark for me, it fell out of my brain before I could stop it. I honestly didn't think anyone else would want to read another retelling, but here we are. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. To everyone who gave a kudos, or left a comment, or even read. You don't know how much feedback and reception can do for an ailing fic writer's heart, and I thank you so much for your kindness.
> 
> I'll be back soon (hopefully),  
> Charlie <3

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr: **[eveninglottie](https://eveninglottie.tumblr.com/)** || [Youtube Playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYYP1CurSOrTN7SQFtA8eb5cvgUT7Rrb-) || [Spotify Playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/eveninglottie/playlist/6PjKwzZOzRYxkOjOjPCh9X?si=g3UbR_UASKyZvtrfeYE7dw)
> 
> I've been lucky enough to be gifted a few amazing pieces of art for this fic, so if you are interested, please go and check out [my tag on my tumblr](https://eveninglottie.tumblr.com/tagged/bella-art). It's all amazing and the artists deserve so, so much love <3


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